


Home to Roost

by javasleuth



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon-compliant (Anime), Everyone shows up eventually, Future Fic, Getting Back Together, Hallmarky homecoming feel-good fluff with a detour through Finding Yourself, Multi, Slow Burn, Tagged ships are endgame
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:53:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 55,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24627334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/javasleuth/pseuds/javasleuth
Summary: “The National qualifiers,” Suga murmured, ghosting over the photograph with his own fingertips before shaking his head and offering it back to his former teacher. “It’s funny, isn’t it? I never thought I’d be back here. I remember thinking—even before this picture, actually—that Karasuno was completely done with me.”The unspoken ‘and yet…’ hung silently in the air.“Maybe,” Takeda replied easily. A mischievous gleam alit in his eyes as he took the photograph back. “But maybe you weren’t done with Karasuno.”-*-*8 years after graduating, Sugawara Koushi accepts a teaching position at Karasuno High School, in the hometown he swore was through with him. Stepping into the shoes of his own former sensei, Suga finds his past and present overlapping in unpredictable ways as he realizes just how much he left undone—and discovers, to his own surprise, how hard he’s willing to work for a second chance. With his quiet homecoming, he sets in motion a chain of events which will bring a group once closer than family back to the place that made them and the people they left behind.
Relationships: Amanai Kanoka/Tanaka Ryuunosuke, Azumane Asahi & Sawamura Daichi & Sugawara Koushi, Azumane Asahi/Nishinoya Yuu, Bokuto Koutarou/Kuroo Tetsurou/Tsukishima Kei, Nishinoya Yuu & Sugawara Koushi, Sawamura Daichi/Sugawara Koushi, Takeda Ittetsu & Sugawara Koushi, Takeda Ittetsu/Ukai Keishin, Tanaka Saeko/Tsukishima Akiteru
Comments: 110
Kudos: 244





	1. Prologue / Ch. 1 - Welcome Home, Suga

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is a long-form fic which takes place mostly 8 years after the graduation of Suga, Daichi, and Asahi. It’s canon-compliant with the anime so far but I’m only on chapter 50ish of the manga so it will almost definitely diverge from the story there. But that’s why you’re reading fanfic to begin with, right?
> 
> [UPDATE: okay so i am Very Caught Up on the manga now and this is definitely a divergent canon, but it will definitely be influenced by knowledge I have of the characters now and may reference it in some places. Still not spoilers, because it’s Pretty Different, but just be aware of that!]
> 
> Anyway.
> 
> I have the rough arc of this outlined and it’s going to Take A While but I hope you enjoy getting there with me! I will update the tags as we go—right now just know that all of the tagged ships are either established or endgame, though in the case of a few of them there will be some angst in getting there. Nothing huge though. Think “second act of a heartwarming rom-com” levels of frustration.

**prologue**

* * *

_ A lot of different shoes had pounded this floor over the years. A lot of sweat and tears were poured out over countless too-early mornings and too-late nights by a hundred different faces, coming and going in the methodical rise and fall of years. But for the three of them, it ended the way it began—together. _

_ “Shh, we’re going to get caught!” _

_ Hushed, intoxicated giggles floated on the still night air like fireflies, glowing pinpricks of energy that seemed to flicker with a summer urgency.  _

_ “We wouldn’t if you would hurry up and boost me already!” _

_ “Why didn’t we just get the key?” _

_ “I gave it to Ennoshita already. We’re never coming back here, remember? It’s their gym now.” _

_ “Not tonight, it’s not.” _

_ With a grunt of exertion and a stumbled landing, the shortest of them landed inside the gym, peering back up through the window at the uneven shafts of light that illuminated his silvery hair and the footworn wooden floor below. _

_ “I’m in!” _

_ “Then open the door already!” _

_ He made his way over to the wide bay doors, silent as a ghost even though they were well beyond discovery at this point, and slid them open carefully, with practiced familiarity. Moonlight flooded the gymnasium then, casting lanky shadows across the empty room. They closed the door behind them and flipped the switch as the hum of overworked electricity brought one bulb after another on overhead. Daichi clapped his two best friends solidly on the back, his head buzzing with cheap sake and the sound of the empty gym as a grin stretched across his face. _

_ “Last night. Whaddya wanna do?” _

_ Sugawara knew he needed to form actual words but he couldn’t seem to stop giggling. _

_ “We—we could—hahaha—-we—hk—“ _

_ “Sugaaahahaha—“ _

_ Asahi was stricken by laughter too, his shoulders—still imprinted with dusty sneaker-prints from where Suga had stood to hoist himself through the window—shaking with nervous snickers. _

_ “What’s wrong with both of you?” Daichi demanded incredulously, but he himself wasn’t immune to the energy that was overtaking the others, and before long collapsed onto Asahi’s shoulder with the same hysterical breathlessness. _

_ “I can’t believe—ehehe—we broke in! The others would never believe it! Their—hahahaha—honorable senpais, wild ruffians, all of us—“ _

_ “Why are we—why are we even laughing—?” _

_ “I’m—hahaha—I’m just—“ Suga scrunched up his face, and the moonlight reflected off the tears welling up in his eyes with a soft quicksilver gleam. “I’m just so happy. I’m so happy to be here with you guys.” _

_ “Aw, Suga-chan, you had all day with us!” _

_ “Yeah, hahaha, aren’t you tired of our faces yet?” _

_ “I had th—ahehehe—I had three years with you. The best years of my life.” _

_ The snickers and giggles died away, leaving behind a soft, warm glow. The other two beamed at him fondly, feeling for all the world like this moment might last forever, against all the evidence today—a day solely and irrefutably dedicated to marking the passage of time—had given them to the contrary. _

_ “This really is the last time, huh?” Asahi mused softly, after a quiet moment. “Really, really. Not like our last inter-high, or our last tourney, or our last game...this is it. We graduated. We’re done.” _

_ “Yeah. This is it.” _

_ They fell silent. _

_ “Guess we better make it a good one then.” Daichi smirked and shrugged off his jacket, jogging over to the abandoned equipment cart and lobbing a volleyball across the court with practiced ease. “Serve’s up!” _

_ “Aah! You gotta give us a heads up next time!” _

_ “Daichiiiii—“ _

_ The squeaking of rubber soles on wood and the rhythmic thwack of hands mingled with laughter well into the night. _

  
  


**ch 1 - welcome home, suga**

* * *

“...And normally this is where I’d give you the tour, but something tells me you probably don’t need it, hm?”

“No, sensei, thank you,” Sugawara dipped his head slightly with a little laugh. “I think I’ll manage.”

Takeda put a hand on the younger man’s shoulder and smiled. It was only then, in the creases around his eyes, that he showed any signs of age, and the strangeness of the whole thing rang strangely metallic in Suga’s chest. It wasn’t melancholy or even bittersweet, necessarily—though neither emotion would have been out of place, there was nothing particularly sad about it. Takeda-sensei couldn’t really be called old even now, and the reunion was certainly a pleasant one. Just...surreal. He thought, weirdly, of the first time he tried to watch a 3D movie, and the way that different versions of the same picture moved in the same place at the same time. Looking at his old teacher from the other side of 8 years felt a lot like that. Past and present were all mixed up in each other in overlapping, headache-inducing real-time, and for the first—but not the last—moment, a voice in the back of his mind questioned whether any of this was a good idea. He supposed it was too late now to listen.

“Well then, let me be the first to professionally, officially welcome you to the Karasuno High School faculty, Sugawara-sensei. And on a personal note, please know just how deeply glad I am to have you here.”

“Please, don’t call me ‘sensei,’ that’s too weird,” Suga put his hands up defensively. “I mean, I’ve been ‘sensei’ to my students for a few years now, but I’m not sure I’m quite ready to hear it from you.”

Takeda laughed again, pulling his glasses off to wipe them on his cardigan as he sat down in the high-back chair on the far side of his desk. “And how do you think I feel saying it? If I’d known that accepting the vice principal position meant confronting my age like this, I might have stuck with modern literature.”

“Well if you hadn’t been such a good modern literature teacher, I wouldn’t have ended up taking your job.” Sugawara smiled slyly. It was still hard to believe it had worked out like this. He had known, even back in high school, that he wanted to teach, but as a solid all-around student no specific subject had really ever stood out to him as the obvious choice. At least not until Takeda-sensei had joined the volleyball club. The man had such a way of looking at things—such broad perspectives and keen insights—Suga thought he wanted to be that kind of teacher someday. And so, in the kind of logical leap that only a 17 year old can really make when determining the course of their future, that meant literature. 8 years later, scrolling through job listings, he found that Karasuno had an opening. 

“Well I’m certainly glad you did! Nothing would have pleased me more.”

It was funny, in retrospect. He had actually reached out to Takeda when he found the listing, e-mailing him to make sure he was alright and that nothing had happened at Karasuno which would make applying for the job a sign of disrespect to the man. Takeda had encouraged Suga to apply for the job, insisting he would take no offense and that he would be happy to catch up with Sugawara when he came into town for the interview. He had simply failed to mention that he would be the one facilitating it.

Suga’s thoughts flickered briefly to the former vice principal, and more specifically to an unforgettable encounter between the man and a certain handful of first-year volleyball hopefuls some many years ago...Takeda-sensei, in his endless patience, would no doubt have an easier time of this job than his predecessor, if history were inclined to repeat itself. Something about that particular turn of phrase made Suga feel unsettled, and he cast his glance around the recently redecorated office as his eyes settled involuntarily on a picture in the cabinet. He felt that pang in his chest again and hummed, a little melancholy sound, in spite of himself. Never one to miss a beat, Takeda followed his gaze to the small display that had caught the younger man’s attention.

“Ah,” he sighed wistfully. “The Golden Year.”

“The Golden Year?” Suga crossed his arms with a bemused smile. “Sensei, you flatterer.”

“That’s what we used to call it,” he admitted, sliding back the glass to retrieve the photograph in question. His fingers skimmed across the surface as he looked upon it fondly.

“We?”

“Kei—Coach Ukai and I.” Takeda met Suga’s eyes and offered him the photograph. Sugawara took it, gingerly, as if it might turn to dust in his grasp, and allowed himself to see what his memory had already supplied. 12 high school boys, in black and orange jerseys, lined up and beaming so brightly it made his face ache even just to remember the feel of it. His brain supplied a name for every face, a history for every bandage and bruise, and he knew exactly what he would see if he managed somehow to zoom in on the plaque of the trophy in his younger self’s hands.

“Coach Ukai said that?”

“Rarely in public,” Takeda admitted with a chuckle. “But that’s what it was.”

“The National qualifiers,” Suga murmured, ghosting over the photograph with his own fingertips before shaking his head and offering it back to his former teacher. “It’s funny, isn’t it? I never thought I’d be back here. I remember thinking—even before this picture, actually—that Karasuno was completely done with me.” 

The unspoken  _ ‘and yet…’  _ hung silently in the air.

“Maybe,” Takeda replied easily. A mischievous gleam alit in his eyes as he took the photograph back. “But maybe you weren’t done with Karasuno.”

-*-*

Tanaka and Nishinoya laughed uproariously, throwing their heads back and attracting vaguely annoyed glances from the other patrons of the tiny bar, who very much gave off the impression of being used to this.

“That’s sensei for you!”

“Couldn’t pass up the chance to say something super weird even now, eh?!”

“Watch out, Suga-san, he’ll have you spitting up old proverbs in no time!”

“Wearing old track jackets over your shirt and tie—“

“—get you a pair of glasses to push up on your nose—“

“Very funny, both of you,” Suga rolled his eyes, smirking over his beer glass as he raised it to his lips, ignoring Nishinoya’s pantomime of Takeda-sensei’s huge spectacles. His expression softened just slightly as he relaxed into the moment, the familiarity of it all. But even here he felt that strange overlay of time. There was something so easy, so effortless, so  _ known  _ about laughing with Noya and Ryu, as if he had been here a million times before, and yet—he hadn’t. He had never once been out drinking with the two of them, both of them still being just underage the last time they all saw each other. He felt something squeeze at his heart as he wondered how much he had missed—glimpsed the wedding band on Tanaka’s finger, noticed the little streaks of premature grey at Nishinoya’s widow’s peak that bleach and gel had overlooked—and was struck, almost simultaneously, by the bizarre revelation that he was here now. Really here. The future could look like Friday nights with these two until time stopped. Did he want that? Were some things better left in perfectly preserved photographs on display?

“Hoi! Sugawara!” Nishinoya’s voice and hand in his face brought an abrupt end to the thought.

“Suga-chan, why so dreamy?” Tanaka batted teasing eyelashes at him from the other side of the table, jolting him back into reality. “You can touch us if ya want, promise we’re real!”

Noya slapped him hard on the shoulder.

“You stop that! You’re a married man, Tanaka-san! Lay off the nice gentleman!”

Suga grinned, pushing back the misty introspection that kept ebbing up at the corners of his mind and allowing himself to get pulled into the banter.

“It’s fine, Noya-kun, he’s still not my type anyway.”

“He’s nobody’s type!” Nishinoya cackled delightedly.

“I have a  _ wife,  _ dumbass!”

“Her loss!”

“On that note,” Suga interjected. “Tanaka-kun, seriously, thank you to you and Kanoka-san both for letting me stay with you while I get my feet under me here. This whole thing came together so quickly; I never expected to be apartment-hunting the week before school.”

“Hey, what are friends for?” Tanaka beamed, thumping his chest in a show of solidarity and clapping a hand on Suga’s shoulder. “You always have a place here in Karasuno.”

Something warm and solid settled in Suga’s chest. For the first time since the morning train had pulled into town, he felt grounded.

“Besides,” Tanaka continued, mirth splitting his face. “I’m doing Kanoka-chan a favor bringing home a pretty guy for her to look at for a change.”

Nishinoya winked devilishly.

“Why d’ya think I’m still living there?”

“Because they wanted something small and needy and couldn’t afford a cat?”

The table fell to immediate, pin-dropping silence as Tanaka and Noya blinked in surprise, exchanging glances before suddenly erupting into booming laughter and toasting to Sugawara.

“He’s back, everybody!”

“Welcome home, Suga!”

The warm, solid thing that had settled in his chest fluttered slightly, and he felt the corner of his mouth twitch upward as he clinked his glass against the others. 

Home.


	2. Lost Touch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brief content warning for emetophobia in the first few paragraphs. Sorry!
> 
> The details of this chapter went through a few different versions before I settled here...so if anything doesn’t line up let me know, it just means I’m still operating on a previous version in my brain!
> 
> ——-

Of all the many things in which Sugawara did not display an exceptional talent, sometimes sleeping in was the one he regretted most.

He was awake the instant the grey, pre-dawn light fell across his face, blinking into consciousness with an unprecedented hangover. He groaned quietly, rolling over to bury his head beneath the unfamiliar pillow as he groped for his phone on the nightstand. 6:12 AM. Hadn’t he suffered enough for one lifetime? Was it not enough simply to know that Noya and Tanaka had drunken him under the table, to remember hazily that he had told them both in detail about his three favorite poems before vomiting on the sidewalk? And had they really opened up another bottle of sake with Kanoka when they got home? Now that he thought of it, Kanoka-san had pretty handily outclassed him, too. 

_“You’re pe-he-herfect for each h’other_ ,” he had choked out weepily, hugging a pillow, and then—

Oh no. Oh no no no no no no no.

He fumbled to unlock his phone, dropping it on the ground and accidentally banging his head on the table as he lunged after. He saw his vision split open into stars as his stomach lurched violently, causing him to roll off of the couch with an unceremonious thud. He hissed, locking a curse between his teeth as he sat up slowly.

Nishinoya snickered.

“Well hey there, Mr. Pleasant.”

Suga groaned, nursing his tender skull and blinking his eyes open to see Noya, dressed, tugging on a light jacket at the doorway.

“Where did that nickname come from?”

“They used to call you that, right? The guys from Aojoh?”

“Only one,” Sugawara muttered. “You’re up early.”

“I could say the same for you. Thought we were gonna hafta resuscitate you sometime tonight.”

“Light sleeper.”

“Lighter drinker,” the former libero chuckled. “You gonna pass back out?”

Suga shook his head to the contrary, standing up with only a little bit of a struggle and stretching out his shoulders.

“Nah. As crummy as I feel right now, I’ll feel way worse come Monday if I don’t get on a school schedule. You mind if I make coffee though?”

“Hey, bro, it’s your house as much as ours for now.” Noya paused and checked his watch. “But if you really don’t plan to catch any more Z’s, why don’t you let me treat you?”

Suga blinked.

“We have a coffee house now?”

“Well, that might be a little generous, but it’s strong and black and the morning crowd is quiet.” He grinned again. Suga wondered if he had ever stopped. “Come on. I’ll skip my morning run today. One coffee for my senpai—sorry, my sensei? I’ve never been teacher’s pet before.”

“You’re still not,” Suga laughed. “But you’re well on your way. Lemme brush my teeth first.”

Nishinoya offered a very understanding thumbs-up and Sugawara grabbed his toothbrush from the duffel bag at his side, resisting the urge to glance down at his phone until there was a locked door between him and the unforgiving morning. Once he was in the bathroom, he clutched the slim device to his chest, closing his eyes and exhaling deeply before swiping the unlock code and frantically thumbing through his sent texts. His heart dropped. Oh gods no.

TO: S. DAICHI

> HEy!!!!

> its been too lonbg how are you i’m! homw now we should catcy yo next time you’re backi miss you

Suga felt the blood rush into his face and his stomach rush into his throat as he ducked his head over the toilet and ejected what little his body had left to eject. He let his forehead thud solidly against the cool wall and cursed inwardly. Why had he done that? He hadn’t talked to Sawamura in literal years. This was the worst conceivable way to start off a new (old?) chapter of his life. He splashed some cold water on his face and brushed his teeth meticulously, letting the horrible taste of the past 12 hours run down the drain as he turned the situation over in his mind. Surely this wasn’t as catastrophic as it felt right now. After all, there was no guaranteeing Daichi had even kept the same number, right? It had been so long. Surely he’d gotten a new phone by now. Surely he didn’t recognize the sender. And so what if he did? The text wasn’t that embarrassing. Could have been worse.

Maybe you weren’t done with Karasuno.

His heart skipped a beat as sensei’s words came, unbidden, to mind. Frowning, he shook it off, shoved his phone back in his pocket, and ran his fingers through his hair, quick-checking his reflection only to assure that he looked alive enough to leave the house.

“Catch,” Noya surprised him as he walked back out of the bathroom by tossing him something. Against all odds Suga managed to catch it, turning the crinkly foil packet over in his hands for a second until he recognized it as candied ginger.

“Is this real? Am I dreaming? Do miracles really happen?” Suga unwrapped the candy and popped it into his mouth, already feeling his stomach settle as he rolled it over his tongue. “8 years and you’ve still got my back.”

Nishinoya chuckled, pushing his chest out proudly.

“Guardian spirit, remember? I got everyone’s back.”

“You got anything for this headache?”

A small plastic bottle landed neatly in Suga’s hands with a rattle.

“Marry me.”

“I can’t be tied down that easy.”

Sugawara snorted. “You’ve been living in your hometown with your best friend ever since you graduated high school.”

He immediately regretted the dig for reasons he didn’t understand, because in that instant something uncharacteristically grim flashed across Noya’s usually bright face. It passed before Suga could form an apology, giving way to an easy wink and a shrug as he opened the front door and handed Suga his shoes.

“Someone had to hold things down around here, and Vice Captain Dependability-Is-My-Weapon was nowhere to be found, so...”

“Ouch. I felt that one.” Suga faked being wounded, but he nevertheless felt a fond smile stretch his face. Had it really been so easy to forget how much he had loved these boys? Or had it just been easier than wondering if that love would still be there when he lifted his head to look for it? He thought of all of them at once, names and faces flooding his mind and stalling his tongue as he tried to figure out where to even start.

“You wanna know what everyone else has been up to.” It was a statement, not a question.

Suga nodded, standing and popping another ginger chew in his mouth as they closed the door behind them and set off down the road into the early morning breeze. It seemed safer than speaking.

“Well, lucky for you, you came to the right place!” Noya laced his fingers behind his head, unable to resist the urge to bask in his importance for a moment. Suga found it endearing. Time may have softened the edges of his friend, but he was glad it hadn’t changed the shape of him. 

“Let’s see...Hinata and Kageyama I’m sure you already know, there was a big fuss about it a few years ago when they both qualified for the national team.”

“I’m amazed the town is still standing, to be honest.”

“You shoulda been here, there was a big thing over at the Miyagi sports park. I think there might be a plaque on Tobio’s old house now?”

The words should have been here stuck in the back of Suga’s mind. He merely hummed in acknowledgement and let Noya continue.

“Yamaguchi is still around, actually. I think he’s taught a dozen other kids that jump float. He plays with Tsukishima’s neighborhood team.”

“Tsukishima is still here too?”

“Oh, sorry, not our Tsukki. You remember his brother? Akiteru-san?”

“Oh, the other Tsukishima? The one that smiled?” Suga joked.

“Yeah,” Noya laughed. “You got it. He moved local when he and Big Sis had their first kid.”

“Their first kid?”

“It’s been eight years, Suga-chan! People have kids!”

“So they’re…?”

“Nah, not married. But happy. They’ve taken a break or two from each other here and there, but they’re good parents and good people. Great kids. But you should have seen our Tsukki’s face when he realized he basically has Tanaka as a brother-in-law.”

Suga grinned. 

“I’m sure he handled it very reasonably.”

“Man, you have been away too long. He’s in Tokyo now, by the way. Teaches university math. Oh wait. Physics, maybe? I don’t know the difference. He’s actually taller than he was in high school. The goddamn nerve.”

Suga placed a consoling hand on Nishinoya’s shoulder. 

“These things are rarely fair.”

They had reached the little corner cafe by then, a quiet little nook not far from the high school which Suga suspected would become both very familiar to him and a great deal busier once classes were in session. Nishinoya seemed to know everyone by face and name alike, offering personal greetings and listening intently to casual conversation as the staff made small talk around their order. Sugawara was perfectly content to sit back and wait for the ritual conversation to finish, letting his glance roam over the walls and the hum of voices wash over him. 

Before he knew it, a coffee mug appeared on the table in front of him and Noya appeared in the seat across.

“Where were we?”

“Tokyo.”

“Yeah!”

The coffee was black and bitter but did a surprisingly good job coaxing Suga’s body back to something that approximated life. They chatted for what felt like hours as Nishinoya effortlessly fed detail after detail into the conversation. By the bottom of his mug, Suga had learned that Tsukki’s Tokyo apartment was shared with Bokuto, who was an athletic trainer now, and Kuroo, who was some sort of sports analyst for a middlingly well-known tv program. He learned that Ennoshita had started a family and settled into an office job on the other side of the prefecture but occasionally met them for drinks. Yachi, apparently, was doing very well for herself, as a rising graphic designer for a very glamorous women’s modeling agency, and judging by her photos was particularly close with some of the models outside of a strictly business capacity. Shimizu had started a nonprofit just out of college which Nishinoya sheepishly admitted focused on empowering young women through athletics and self-defense, and that he and Tanaka both donated monthly, which made Suga laugh so hard his headache returned with a vengeance as Noya buried his face in his hands. Nishinoya himself was proudly employed as a courier for Japan Post, a job he self-described as “the single most important man in Karasuno” and “the reason this town can rest easy at night.”

As a matter of fact there were only two names they hadn’t mentioned at all.

“So…” Suga tapped his fingers on the table as nonchalantly as possible, trying very hard to keep his voice even and to avoid thinking about the cell phone that suddenly weighed six thousand pounds in his pocket. “When’s the last time you heard from Daichi?”

Nishinoya seemed surprised, his head quirking to the side as he raised an eyebrow.

“You don’t talk to Daichi-san?”

“I don’t really talk to anybody,” Suga deflected, his face warming more than he would have liked.

“I know, but...Daichi.”

He didn’t have to say anything else, really. Truth be told, Suga had to admit he wouldn’t have believed it himself from the other side of the table—or from the other side of graduation. He had always thought they would remain inseparable, and that he would be the one to make sure it happened. But he hadn’t, and they didn’t. He ached for reasons that had nothing to do with last night.

“What happened?” Noya asked, simply. It wasn’t unkind, but it hurt.

“Nothing,” Suga answered honestly. “Nothing happened.” Maybe that was the worst part. “We just…” he trailed his hand through the air, gesturing at something words couldn’t really serve.

“Yeah.” Noya let his arms cross on the table in front of him as his gaze fell on some faraway point out the window. “I’m sorry.”

Suga could tell his thoughts had travelled elsewhere, and had an idea where that might be.

“I, ah. Do occasionally hear from Asahi though.”

“Yeah?” Noya’s face remained unreadable, his gaze unmoving.

“Yeah. I...helped him pick out the ring.”

“Ah.”

“And...then I returned it.”

“Mm.”

Suga reached across the table and put a hand on his friend’s.

“I’m so sorry.”

Noya paused for a moment, then flashed that same lackadaisical smile, brushing away the attempt at vulnerability with a disarming aloofness.

“Eh, it was years ago. We were kids. Besides, if you know what happened, you shouldn’t be apologizing to me.”

Suga hummed, a teachery little noise that passed for something like disbelief or complacency, depending on your conscience. To Noya, it felt like judgment. He waited for the other man to fill the silence with something more, sighing heavily when he didn’t.

“It wasn’t his fault.”

“Oh?” Suga kept his voice measured, taking care not to pry beyond what Nishinoya was ready to offer. Noya ran his thumb over the handle of his mug, testing out words he might never have voiced before. It was the first time Sugawara had ever seen him speechless.

“Suga-kun, I don’t know if this makes any sense, but have you ever loved someone so much you wanted them as far away from you as possible?”

Suga smiled apologetically.

“I honestly can’t say that I have, no.”

“Yeah,” Noya laughed. “That’s probably because you’re good for people, Kou-chan.”

“Hey, you’re good for—“

“Not for him, I wasn’t. I wanted to be. I wanted to fight every battle for him. To break down anything standing in his way, I wanted to make sure nothing was stopping him from being everything I knew he could be, and then he...and I realized...that was me. I was stopping him.”

“Noya-kun…”

Noya clenched his fist and frowned, staring down into his empty mug.

“He spent my entire third year just...waiting for me. And I loved it. I wanted him there. But then he proposed and I realized...he was always going to be waiting for me. Any great thing he did, he was only gonna do it because he thought I made it possible. He wasn’t ever gonna know who he could be without me. And I freaked, and…”

“And I returned the ring,” Suga finished quietly.

“Yeah. I didn’t even tell him why. I knew if he argued, I’d cave. I don’t remember what reason I made up. Maybe I didn’t even do that much. I don’t know. It was a long time ago, and I wanted him to move on fast.”

Suga couldn’t meet his eyes. Noya hadn’t asked the question, but the knowing silence was almost its own answer.

“You’re killing me, Suga.”

“I’m sorry.” Suga apologized. “It’s been a while. He might be with someone else by now...I can’t say for certain.”

“But he wasn’t…”

“Last time I checked, no,” he admitted. “But like I said—I don’t really talk to anybody much.”

Noya went silent again, staring moodily out the window as thoughts rolled over his face like storm clouds.

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” he finally stated. “It was still the right thing to do. You can’t stay hung up forever on the first good thing you find.”

“Hmm.”

“What?”

“Well, it’s just that I can’t help but notice you, also, are still single…”

“WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING SUGAWARA YOU DON’T KNOW THE FIRST THING ABOUT IT I—“

Nishinoya was on his feet in an instant, both hands slammed on the table in an irate display as he shouted, red-faced and distressed. Suga laughed so hard he couldn’t breathe. Maybe things weren’t so different here after all. Maybe their guardian spirit really had guaranteed another chance, yet again. Maybe, he thought, somewhere so deep down he didn’t dare acknowledge it yet, maybe there were things still in play...things he could still go after, if he wanted them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I like the parallels between canon! Suga and Nishinoya as people who both devote themselves to watching out for the people around them, both on and off the court...I think they’d both feel a sense of responsibility for keeping tabs on the crows when they went their different ways. But while Suga maybe lost some faith in his importance to the team over time, especially once the team isn’t a team anymore, I think Noya would have thrown himself even more unwaveringly into being that “guardian spirit” that he is.
> 
> Also, ask me how I’m feeling about AsaNoya today the answer is Very Emotional, Thanks


	3. Nice Toss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I rewrote about 4 different versions of this chapter. I have an outline, I swear, but for some reason the plot keeps refusing to follow it. Anyway. I can’t resist a heavy-handed metaphor, so this is where we ended up. I hope you like it!

_ “Give it here!” _

_ Suga spared little more than a glance toward the ace, nodding to Azumane ever-so-subtly as his fingers made contact, arcing the ball up and out where the other boy’s hand connected with a resounding thwack. _

_ “Yeah! Again!” _

_ The first ball bounced once, twice, rolled away as Kiyoko grabbed another ball from the cart and lobbed it up again on Suga’s cue. He traced the path of it, glanced to Asahi, felt the weight on his fingertips before snapping his wrists out fluidly. _

_ Thwack.  _

_ “Again!” _

_ Thwack. _

_ “Again!” _

_ Thwack. _

_ Thwack. _

Thwack _. _

Thwack.

“Hey, I know that sound,” Sugawara commented as the house came into view. From the street he and Nishinoya could just peer over the fence into the backyard, where Tanaka and Kanoka were peppering a volleyball back and forth, each of them taking turns moving in to receive and then bumping it straight up in a lazy trajectory before stepping back and allowing the other person to swoop in. Suga watched for a moment then gave a low whistle. “Nice form.”

“Hey lovebirds, break it up!” Noya called over the fence. “And get the net out, we’ve got another man!”

“Awh yeah, 2 on 2’s!” Tanaka hollered, catching the ball and dropping it into the grass with a grin.

“You still in shape?” Nishinoya asked, turning to Suga belatedly as he shrugged off his jacket and tossed it over the fence before hoisting himself up.

“Oof, hardly. I do solo drills to blow off steam sometimes, but…”

“As long as you remember how to put the ball up higher than it started,” Kanoka offered with a smile, “then you’re just what we need. You’re a setter, right Sugawara-san?”

“ _ Was  _ a setter.” Suga ungracefully pulled himself over the fence, stumbling slightly as he landed.

“He’s a setter,” Tanaka confirmed, puffing out his chest proudly. “A damn good one!”

“Alright,” Kanoka laughed. “Then he’s on your team, Ryu-chan.”

Tanaka’s face fell slightly.

“Wait, you don’t want to be on my team?”

“We’re both wing spikers, sweetie. If we split up, Noya and Suga-san can both put up sets and we’ll have an actual match instead of a serving contest.”

Tanaka’s formerly crestfallen face lit up with admiration at his wife’s simple explanation.

“Ha! See, fellas, did I marry up in the world or what? That’s my Coach-chan for you!”

“We already knew she was too good for you, dummy, but you’re not supposed to let her know that.”

“Wait, Kanoka-san, do you coach somewhere?” Suga asked while the other two squabbled in the background.

“Yep! I work with the Karasuno Girls Club, actually. I was pro for a couple years right after graduation, but I stepped back after a few close calls with injuries. Anyway, two years ago I got a call asking me to help with a training camp for the students and I ended up sticking around. I’ll probably know some of your troublemakers from class,” she laughed. “But do me a favor and don’t fail any of them, we’re short on players this year.”

“Do  _ me  _ a favor and tell them I’m really stern and totally will if they’re not extra courteous.”

“Deal.”

Between the four of them, the backyard net was put up quickly and some basic rules decided upon. No dinks, no setter dumps, no jump floats—a frankly hilarious requirement since no one present could even manage one, but Tanaka insisted it was a house rule ever since Yamaguchi had come over and lost their favorite ball—and all sets were first to 15. Suga thought to himself that it was probably unnecessary to treat the game quite this seriously to begin with as he had very little hope of outplaying Kanoka and Noya, but it was hard not to fall back into that old familiar intensity when the others were all so invested. The first few rallies passed awkwardly, in a flurry of haphazard receives and wayward balls, with Kanoka near-singlehandedly carrying the momentum of the game, and Suga was relieved to see that at least he wasn’t the only one out of practice. Though the other three had each other to play with, they admitted readily it was hard to do much more than passing drills with only two or three people. The excitement of being able to continue any sort of rally at all, even a clumsy one, caught quickly and before long it was obvious that forgotten muscle memory and dormant instinct had started to awaken in everyone.

It was set point for Kanoka and Nishinoya in their first match, 14-8, when they finally managed their longest rally yet. 

“Service ace!” Nishinoya crowed. He tossed the ball up in a tight arc, tracking its path for a brief instant before stepping forward and slamming it just slightly too far in front of his body. “Augh!”

Suga moved before he quite realized why. “Let serve!” he called, gritting his teeth and diving into his hunch. The ball made contact with his forearm a split second later, tumbling over the tape and into an awkward receive. Suga only just managed to bump it backwards over his head into what he hoped was Tanaka’s spike radius. “Get it over!”

“Graaaahh!” Tanaka arced back and spiked the ball hard as Suga scrambled to his feet. The ball landed squarely in Nishinoya’s waiting arms, sailing beautifully into position for a clean swing from Kanoka. Tanaka planted his feet for a receive and grinned as the ball landed exactly as predicted. It was a near-perfect bump, high and direct and so perfectly positioned that Suga barely even had to move his feet for a setup. 

It was one of those moments where time slowed. Gears that hadn’t turned in Sugawara’s mind for years struggled suddenly into motion, grinding against rust and disuse with a friction he could almost feel. He saw everything—the placement of the ball in his fingers, the bend in Tanaka’s knees, the two open slots along the net where a spike could land uncontested—and for a moment he was 17 again.

_ He could practically feel Kageyama’s eyes on his back from the bench. Coach had put him out here to illustrate a point, he was sure of it—but what? What could he do that Tobio-kun couldn’t? There wasn’t time to figure it out. He focused everything on the ball. This wasn’t about Kageyama. This was about him. He was a good setter, because— _

Suga frowned as the ball fell into his waiting fingertips. Because...because he knew how to give his spikers what they needed? He cushioned his knees and flicked his wrists out straight and high, sending the ball up into an easy, predictable arc with plenty of room. He snapped his head around in time to see Tanaka slap the ball directly into Kanoka’s waiting fingertips. It rolled off into a shaky but playable receive from Nishinoya.

“SUGA!”

Wait, was Tanaka...angry with him?

“Don’t you dare take it easy on me again!” the spiker yelled, pointing an accusatory finger at him even as his eyes followed the ball. “I’m not  _ that  _ rusty!”

The gears in Suga’s brain clicked again.

_Because he knew how to give his spikers what they_ ** _liked._** _There’s no better set than the one that’s easiest for a spiker to hit—that’s what Coach Ukai has said, but Suga quietly disagreed. The best set of all was one that felt good for a spiker to hit. The best set was the one your spiker wanted. He breathed in as the ball fell toward his fingertips, letting the blockers and receivers fall out of his vision. If he gave them the right ball—their favorite ball—his teammates were strong enough to make it count. And Tanaka liked them right—_

—right above the net, about two steps back, with plenty of spin. That was what he remembered. He jumped into the ball this time, sending all the force he could muster to his fingertips as he zinged a toss right to Tanaka’s favorite contact point. Ryu’s eyes lit up and he arced back again for the hit, slamming his arm forward for a...narrow miss. The ball whiffed past his fingertips and dropped to the ground with a dull thud. Everyone stared for a brief moment before Kanoka and Nishinoya erupted into a victory cheer. Tanaka blinked twice and then laughed uproariously.

“Okay, so I’m a little rustier than I thought. But that was perfect! Send ‘em there every time!”

Suga flexed his throbbing fingertips and grinned as the gears ground back into motion. He nodded to his old teammate. 

“Deal.”

They took a quick water break and Suga was unable to resist discreetly checking his phone. Still no new messages. It was early yet, only about 9am. There was a possibility that Daichi—or whomever else was on the other end of that number now, he kept reminding himself—was still asleep. He shoved the phone back into his discarded jacket pocket as the others urged him back into the yard for another set, but it nagged at him all throughout the four other rounds they played until they finally, sweaty and exhausted, broke for breakfast. 

-*-*

Backyard volleyball, catching up, and anxiously awaiting a text that didn’t come quickly became the basic shape of Suga’s life at the Tanaka household, and it was amazing how easy those patterns were to fall into. He would wake up, check his phone, make coffee for everyone, check his phone, help Kanoka around the house while Tanaka and Noya went to work, check his phone multiple times, play as many straight evening sets of 2 on 2’s as sunlight would allow, check his phone, then collapse onto the futon they had kindly set up for him in a small guest room and start the whole process over again.

His aching body slowly caught up as muscles he had long neglected remembered how to stretch and strain. In much the same way, his brain caught up too, both in remembering all the things that had once been second nature with a ball in his hands, but also in reconnecting all the little side streets of Karasuno Ward and attaching new information to names and places he had tucked away in forgotten corners. And with every passing day, the tight knot in his stomach gradually relaxed when he opened his phone to a predictable blank screen. Just a wrong number after all. And that was good! Sending the text in the first place had been a mistake. He was here to work a job and continue his career, not to chase down an old crush and relive his glory days. Backyard volleyball with Tanaka and Noya was one thing, but he wasn’t looking for anything deeper than that. He didn’t need it.

Sunday night came before he knew it, and the first-day-of-school jitters which had accompanied Sugawara since primary school rattled around in his stomach relentlessly. He had just managed to settle them down, with vigorous volleying and a blessedly hot shower, when he caught sight of his phone display out of the corner of his eye.

> 1 UNREAD MESSAGE

His heart flipped. Quickly, he finished toweling off and tugged on an old t shirt and pajama pants, throwing himself down on the futon and snatching the phone before pausing to catch his breath.  _ This is ridiculous _ , he chided himself.  _ It’s probably just one of the apartments I inquired about texting to set up an appointment. Or it’s Takeda-sensei texting about tomorrow morning. It probably doesn’t even matter if I check it right now. I could leave it for later. I don’t have to look. _

He looked.

FROM: S. DAICHI

> sorry, who is this?

Relief and disappointment flooded Suga’s chest at once, mingling messily. So it  _ was  _ just a wrong number. A total stranger. 

TO: S. DAICHI

> Oh my gosh I’m so sorry, this number used to belong to an old friend. I’ll delete it! Sorry to bother you!

He tapped out a message quickly and sent it, moving to delete the number from his phone as if it would somehow unmake the entire silly incident. Suddenly the phone started buzzing in his hand.

>INCOMING CALL: S. DAICHI

Suga groaned. Why were they calling him? Maybe it was someone old who didn’t quite get it. That would explain why it took them a week to respond. Maybe they thought they were being pranked. He shouldn’t answer it.

He answered it.

“Hi,” Suga quickly explained. “I’m so sorry for bothering you, it was a total accident—I was drinking with friends and this number used to belong to someone I knew and—“

The voice on the other end laughed, and Suga felt his heart stop.

_ “ _ Koushi?!”

No amount of time or distance could, apparently, diminish the sound of his given name in Sawamura Daichi’s mouth. Words failed him.

“I—Daichi—you—“

“It  **is** you! Suga-kun, how are you? How long’s it been?”

“Five years,” Suga responded reflexively, and winced. “So wait, since when do you take a week to answer a text message?”

“Since when do you drunk text?” Suga could practically hear the grin splitting the ex-captain’s face, and buried his burning face in his pillow, groaning softly. Daichi laughed again.

“Shut up, Sawamura.”

“I thought someone else must have gotten your old number. Some high schooler into their parents’ sake.”

“Shut  _ up,  _ Sawamura!”

Despite the mortifying embarrassment, Suga couldn’t help but smile. A comfortable silence fell between them for a moment, nothing but the soft sounds of breathing being shared over the phone receiver.

_ “ _ It’s good to hear your voice,” Daichi said, breaking the warm silence.

“Oh?”

_ “ _ Yeah _.” _

“You could have heard it a lot sooner.”

_ “ _ You could have texted me sober. _ ” _

“Okay, I deserved that.” 

Daichi chuckled again. Suga felt his heart leap into his throat.

“God, Daichi, I…” Suga trailed off. What did he say?  _ Daichi I miss you. Daichi I want to see you. Daichi I had the biggest crush on you 8 years ago and guess what I don’t think it ever went away. Wanna catch up? Wanna get drinks? Wanna get married?  _

“Suga, I lost you.”

“You what?” Suga’s brain shorted out.  _ No you never lost me Daichi I’m right here I’m back I’m— _

“I lost you, for a sec. I can hear you now though. Must have just been the connection.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Suga facepalmed.  _ Duh.  _ “I uh. I just said I...gotta be up pretty early for work.”

“Say no more,” Daichi replied easily. “I won’t keep you. But hey.”

“Mm?”

“Now I know for a fact you have my number. Use it sometime, huh?”

Suga grinned. 

“Not if you use mine first.”

“You’re on.”

They stumbled their way through the awkward end-of-call pleasantries and Sugawara was left staring at his cell phone, his face warm and his heart full to bursting. He groaned and rolled over to bury his face in the pillow.  _ Great, Koushi,  _ he thought.  _ You’re starting high school again tomorrow, you just got off the phone with Sawamura Daichi, and your arms are covered in volleyball bruises. What year is it and why haven’t you grown up at all?  _ But he couldn’t shake the feeling that for the first time in a long time, maybe life had tossed him the kind of ball he wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! The next chapter should be up soon—it’s probably the most straightforward one yet (barring any unforeseen surprises) so it shouldn’t take too long to pull together. I really appreciate the kudos and comments so far!


	4. Spitting Image

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, adding an OC: this story needs more women in it
> 
> Me, looking at that OC thirty seconds later: this story needs more lesbians in it

“—and we’re just about out of time, so if there aren’t any questions…”

Almost as if on cue, the class bell chimed out in the hallway. Most of the students were out of their seats before it finished sounding, pushing out of the classroom with mumbled “thank you sensei”s and “hey wait up!”s and “give that back”s. Suga sighed with relief and turned to start wiping off the whiteboard. He had a short break before his next class, and if memory served there was a coffee pot in the teachers’ lounge which, if possible, sounded even more appealing after three sections of modern literature than it had first thing in the morning. So far, nothing too disastrous. His first three classes had been, if not  _ excited  _ about the syllabus, then at least receptive to it. Though Suga supposed it was hard to object to anything with too much specificity when you were still half-asleep.

He weaved easily through the idle crowds in the hallway, lost partially in thought as his feet carried him forward. That corner there was the one where Nishinoya had gotten suspended after his fight with Asahi...that wall had been repainted since Ennoshita had used it to film his literature project...this bathroom was the one where he’d helped Hinata clean up a bloodied knee after he tripped on the stairs while racing Kageyama to Japanese class...he chuckled quietly to himself, shaking his head as he came up on the lounge door. He walked in, sighing softly as the hallway noise faded into the comfortable quiet of the break space. It was empty right now, save for a woman probably just slightly younger than him who Suga was reasonably certain he recognized, but if he had learned her name already it wasn’t coming to mind.

“Sugawara-sensei!” she called out cheerily.  _ Of course _ .

“Hey!” he offered with a friendly, nameless wave which he hoped came across as casual and not incredibly obvious. “Is there still coffee…?”

She laughed, offering a sympathetic nod as she pulled shoulder-length brown hair into a ponytail and stood up from her desk.

“Right over here,” she pointed out the carafe and waited patiently as Suga poured himself a cup and leaned back against the counter with a blissful sigh. He had barely taken a sip before she spoke up again. “It’s Michimiya, by the way. Michimiya Hana.”

“Hm?”

“That’s my name! I knew yours but I just realized you probably didn’t know mine. Sorry about that!”

“Oh, that’s okay!” Suga reassured her, more relieved than anything that it wasn’t a disrespect on his own part. Though the name did sound awfully familiar, now that she mentioned it. “I definitely would have just blamed it on myself for forgetting.”

“Haha, no no, we haven’t met yet, don’t worry.”

Suga laughed politely, still a bit thrown off by the whole interaction and the fact that the admitted stranger knew his name to begin with. Maybe Takeda-sensei had mentioned him? Suddenly something registered vaguely in his memory. “Wait, Michimiya-san...do you—?”

“I think you went to school with my older sister, Yui-chan?”

Click.

“Yeah!” Suga relaxed a bit. Wow, he thought, Karasuno really was a small place. How many other younger siblings or older cousins were running around this ward? This school, even? “That must be why you looked so familiar. You really resemble her!”

“Haha, we get that a lot, even now. You played volleyball here, right?” Hana asked. Her boundless energy was sweet, if a bit intimidating.

“Ah, It’s good to have fans. You want an autograph?”

Hana giggled. “Maybe, I could probably resell it a few places in town. Your team was amazing!”

“I wouldn’t really call them  _ my  _ team, but…” he felt his face glow slightly warm with pride. “Yes. Yes they were.”

“You were vice-captain though.” Hana stated this as if it were an obvious, incontrovertible fact, rather than a thing nobody in their right mind should be expected to remember. Suga startled slightly, taken aback by how much the woman seemed to know about him already. Fear crept into the back of his mind as he wondered whether or not he was going to have to reject an obsessive coworker’s affections, and how awkward that would make the rest of this year. He opted to keep it breezy.

“Gee, Michimiya-san, you sure have a head for sports trivia, huh?”

“Aah!” She squeaked in embarrassment, burying her face in her hands in a gesture that really did remind Suga a lot of her older sister. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t even think how that must come across!” She took a deep breath and smiled a little, rolling her eyes. “Yui-chan made me watch  _ all _ your tournament games with her. It was like a family event, following those matches. I mean it wasn’t just us, everyone on our street—no, the neighborhood—was in a buzz about it, but she never stopped talking about you guys, especially the ones in her year, and I just...took it all in, I guess! I was still in middle school so it seemed more like you were characters on a screen than real people. But I think she was your biggest fan.”

“Mmm.” Suga hummed a little and sipped at his coffee. “Well I believe that to a certain extent.” He smirked knowingly. “But I have a hunch it wasn’t  _ me _ she was cheering for.”

Hana bit her lower lip, not quite able to wrangle the grin that tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Sugawara-sensei, are you trying to get me to  _ gossip _ ?”

“Me? Never. How is Yui-san? I remember she was always such a sweetheart.”

“She’s good! She just got married last year.”

“Wow, good for her!”

“Mhmmm.” After a brief pause, she added an afterthought. “Not to Sawamura-san though.” 

“His loss,” Suga commented politely. Still, he felt suddenly preoccupied for reasons he hadn’t bothered to examine up until that point. He would have known if Daichi got  _ married,  _ right? Sure they didn’t talk much, but...no. He would have said something. He definitely would have said something.

“So I guess that means you also didn’t marry Sawamura-san?”

Suga choked on his coffee, coughing as he tried to regain his composure in the face of Hana’s pleasant, unfazed expression. He put the mug down and hurriedly grabbed for a napkin to clean up the spattered front of his dress shirt. He felt his cheeks blazing with heat as he crumpled up the useless wad and tossed it toward the wastebasket.

“Dammit, this is a new shirt.” He ran his fingers through his hair, avoiding eye contact. “Sorry. That’s what I get for drinking hot coffee too fast.”

“No, I’m sorry,” she apologized quickly, but there was a knowing gleam in her eyes and a soft, understanding smile. “I, um. Didn’t think that would get such a reaction.”

“Oh, it’s nothing, really. Just wasn’t expecting that!” He smiled broadly and waved it off jokingly. “But no, if Dai-chan was looking to tie me down, he missed his chance ages ago.” That was the sort of joke a straight person would make, right? One who definitely wasn’t still pining after their best friend from high school? Shit.

“Hmm. His loss,” Hana responded. They both fell into silence for an awkward moment. Suddenly Hana lit up again. “Oh! I almost forgot. The vice principal was just here, he left something for you. Right over there.”

Inwardly grateful for the change of subject, Suga followed the direction she indicated to a small wrapped package set on the counter. He absent-mindedly swirled what was left of his coffee as he picked up the little note card that sat on top. It featured a childishly-drawn blackbird tapping on a smart phone with the english text “A LITTLE BIRD TOLD ME…” That made Sugawara grin in spite of himself. No doubt Takeda had looked for cards with crows on them and found the joke devastatingly funny. He thumbed it open.

_ Found this in an old folder. Think it came from the club room, but it would look better on your desk. Happy first day! -Takeda _

From the club room? Suga had no doubt that the place was full of unusual souvenirs, but what could possibly have been in there that needed to sit on his desk? He grimaced as he thought of what sorts of things were probably lurking in that space sprang to mind. Ancient socks. Fossilized protein bar wrappers. Unfinished homework? That would just be cruel. He slid a finger under the flap of brown paper that neatly enclosed the gift, whatever it was, and slid out what seemed to be a frame. He flipped it over to see what the picture was and nearly dropped it.

This wasn’t a staged photo, like the one from Sensei’s office, or even one of the numerous newspaper clippings or special features from the promotional shoots they’d done that year— _ the Golden Year,  _ he found himself calling it in his head. It was a candid shot, so much so that he didn’t recall ever seeing it before and couldn’t for the life of him remember it being taken. But there it was, nonetheless. As he let his gaze wander over it, details began to emerge from hazy half-memory. It must have been at the Tokyo camp, he decided…

_ By day 3, they had named it Mt. Murder—both for the brutal incline, and the crows who threw themselves against it a dozen times a day, once after every single loss. It became more and more dreadful every time, and soon every break point for another team started causing involuntary leg tremors as their bodies prepared themselves for the inevitable aftermath. Still, there was a sort of pride in it—a twisted sense of honor and ownership. Nobody ran that hill better or faster or more enthusiastically than Karasuno. Daichi would stand tall and stoic at the bottom of the hill, and with a thundering clap and his booming voice, they’d all launch into the sprint at full throttle. _

_ It was the middle of that third day, looking up at the incline in front of them, when suddenly the idea of running up that hill one more time felt absolutely unbearable. Sweat beaded on all of their faces as they gritted their teeth and waited on the cue, the sun beating down on all of their backs. Even Nishinoya, who always seemed able to go on forever, looked uncertain, and Tsukishima seemed about ready to pass out at a moment’s notice. Suddenly someone’s voice rang out, but it wasn’t Daichi. Hinata, shouting wordlessly at the top of his lungs, was racing up the hill as fast as his legs could carry him, all sense of control or restraint abandoned completely. As soon as he moved, Kageyama was after him in a flash, yelling just as loud. All the others watched in disbelief, slowly cracking into grins and hollers as they followed suit, feet pounding the grass underfoot as they threw themselves with total, reckless abandon, tapping into whatever feral adrenaline was keeping their bodies upright past the point of utter exhaustion. _

_ They reached the top at a fever pitch, breathless but still shouting to beat the devil and cheering each other on in a blood frenzy. As each boy mounted the summit they were met by the ones already waiting—in sweaty, exuberant bear hugs, aggressive high fives, hands clapped on backs with such force that they drove what little wind was left directly out of you. Yamaguchi beamed with delight as he locked a resistant but clearly smiling Tsukki in his arms. Nishinoya had leapt fully up onto Asahi’s back, wrapping his legs around the ace’s waist as he tousled Asahi’s wild mane of hair. Tanaka and Ennoshita threw themselves into a dangerously forceful chest bump.  _

_ Daichi stretched his hands up over his head, sweat streaming down his face and neck in rivulets. Sugawara froze for a minute. He felt light headed and dizzy, hypnotized by the trickle of sunlight tracing the captain’s jawline. Daichi opened his eyes and grinned at Suga before clapping a powerful hand on his shoulder. Reflexively and without thinking, Suga punched him in the stomach. Daichi’s eyes went wide as he doubled over, coughing hard, but before the vice captain could stutter out an apology, Kageyama’s voice cut through the moment. _

_ “That was a head start, cheater! And I still beat you!” _

_ Hinata, eyes glassy with exertion and panting for breath, went stock still. He looked up, his gaze fixed intently on the setter, and then pounced. He shouted as he collided into the other boy, who stumbled backward and, as he lost his footing, tumbled down the hill with Hinata still attached, tangled up in a blur of orange and black as the rest of the team looked on in hysterics. There was a moment—maybe two—of dead, hot silence when they reached the bottom. Then somebody, and he couldn’t remember who now, broke. _

_ Maybe it was Nishinoya who somersaulted down gleefully, or maybe Tanaka threw himself at the ground with the ferocity he usually reserved for a diving dig. Maybe Kinnoshita was simply too tired to walk down and rolling felt, in that instant, like the easiest alternative, but none of them stayed on their feet for long. Suga only barely had time to process a mischievous, toothy grin from Daichi before the other boy shoved him and he went down hard, tumbling down the hill with his teammates in a flurry of breathless shock and laughter. He landed with his head on Asahi’s back and a moment later had Daichi sprawled out across his chest, the three of them giggling uncontrollably in the midst of a heap of their other teammates, all of them exhausted beyond any shame or propriety that could have gotten them to move. _

_ “I thought you three were supposed to set an example,” Tsukishima scoffed. Nishinoya had him in a headlock, pinned to the grass. _

_ “We totally are, didn't you see Daichan’s exemplary tackle? Tremendous form.” _

_ “Credit where it’s due,” Daichi managed between deep breaths. “Asahi’s landing was flawless.” _

_ “My landing? Did you see Sugawara-san’s back somersault? Take notes, kouhai.” _

It was one of those moments he probably would have forgotten about forever, if not for the proof of it in his hands, but it came back quickly and with such staggering clarity that he had to put a hand to his mouth to stop himself from grinning like a fool in the middle of the lounge. One of the managers must have had a camera, he realized. But surely there were other shots from camp. Why had Takeda-sensei seen fit to give him this one, specifically? It was an odd choice—a slightly overexposed, haphazard shot of a bunch of sweaty high school boys sprawled out on the lawn and cackling wildly after their tenth straight loss was probably not what he was going to put on his desk space—but he cherished it all the same. The closeness between the boys in the picture made his chest ache, and he felt overcome by an overwhelming fondness for the version of himself he saw there. 

He wasn’t sure how long he’d spent standing there, losing himself in memories, before Michimiya tapped him gently on the shoulder to offer him what looked like a slim red marker.

“Sugawara-san? Sorry to interrupt, but I need to get back to my classroom—I found a bleach pen in my bag for your shirt. I’m sorry again!”

“Hm? Oh! Thanks, Hana-chan, are you sure? I can get it back to you later today.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she replied easily. “It’s my girlfriend’s, I’ll just buy her a new one. Good luck on the rest of your day!”

Suga didn’t even have time to fully register this new information before she gave him an I-said-what-I-said smile and a finger wave as she departed, leaving him with his thoughts, a handful of difficult coffee stains, and the not-unpleasant feeling that just maybe he was going to get along with Michimiya Hana after all.

-*-*

It took some doing, but eventually the worst of the spots were banished and the rest were at least less noticeable than at the start. He checked his watch and found that he had just enough time to refill his coffee and make it back to the classroom for his next section. He did so, snapping a travel lid on this time to prevent any further accidents, and turned his attention to the photograph again as he made his way down the hall and into his classroom, where the students were still filtering in. He scrawled his name up on the white board and sipped from his coffee, then tucked the picture frame into his messenger bag for safekeeping, giving himself one more glimpse into the past before he zipped it away. He could reminisce later. For now, the mental image of Hinata’s wild-eyed grin would have to suffice. 

He heard the final class bell chime and looked up from his papers, only to find himself directly face-to-face with a pair of bright wild eyes beneath a mess of orange hair.

“Sugawara-sensei!” she chirped with a startlingly familiar grin before ducking into an enthusiastic bow. “I know who you are! My name’s Hinata!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading! Sorry that this chapter doesn’t have a whole lot of anyone who isn’t Suga in it. I promise we’re getting there! This is called inciting action and some people i trust tell me it’s very important to writing novel-length stories. See you in a few days for more Content! Like and subscribe!


	5. Hey, Coach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what if this just became a Natsu fanfic tbh

“My name’s Hinata! Hinata Natsu!”

Suga sat down hard on the stool behind him, his head reeling. 

“I’ll say you are,” he managed after a minute.

“Nacchaaan, you can’t just do that!” the student next to Hinata, a tall girl with close cropped bleach-blonde hair, blushed bright red as Natsu grinned unapologetically.

“You used to play volleyball with my big brother! Miki-chan, Sugawara-sensei is a setter just like me!  _ Fwoosh! _ ” Natsu mimed a volleyball toss, flicking her wrists out snappily as if her classmate required visual assistance.

“I am so sorry,” Miki bowed furiously, her face still crimson. “Hinata-chan has volleyball in the parts of her brain where her manners should be!”

Natsu cackled, immune to embarrassment in a way Suga now had to assume was genetic. He grinned in spite of himself, putting his hands up reassuringly in an attempt to soothe Miki’s anxieties.

“It’s alright, I’ve seen where she gets it from. How is Shouyo doing, Hinata-san?”

“He’s good! But when he was home for New Year’s, I beat him in a serving contest, 52 to 48! All he works on is spiking and jumping and he still doesn’t do his  _ fundamentals!” _

Suga chuckled.

“Well that does sound like him, but I didn’t specifically mean how is he at volleyball.”

Natsu blinked. 

“What else is there?”

An eerie chill shuddered down Sugawara’s spine. Was this really Shouyo’s kid sister, or a test tube clone?

“Hey!” Natsu suddenly lit up again, her eyes gleaming with inspiration.

“No,” Miki interrupted, tugging on the smaller girl’s arm. “No no no no, Natsu-chan, please just sit down and let sensei—“

Natsu pulled her arm away and pointed enthusiastically at her startled teacher.

“You should coach for the boys volleyball club!”

Suga’s heart skipped a beat.

“I’m sorry?”

“Nacchan!” Miki scolded the redhead, dragging her down an aisle and finally managing to push her firmly into a desk. She clapped her hands together in front of her face and bowed again to the teacher. “I’m sorry, sensei! Nacchan, you have to stop asking all the teachers to coach volleyball!”

“But Sugawara-sensei really  _ should  _ though! Sugawara-sensei! You should! They need someone or they won’t be able to get any good and then we can’t use them for practice games!”

“I’m afraid I am not exactly coaching material, Hinata-san.” Suga smiled apologetically and turned to the board to begin writing class instructions. “Now, if everyone could please find their seats, I’m going to hand out the syllabus. Could I have a volunteer to—“

“Sensei!”

“ _ Yes _ , Hinata-san?”

“But you’re a setter and the setter has to make decisions for the team already, right? Like on the court in the middle of a rally? And you have to know what everybody else is doing all the time so I think already you’d basically know how to be a good coach anyway, you could totally—“

“Hinata-san, since you raised your hand, I’m going to have you pass out the syllabus. And then I’m going to have you stay after class to finish whatever else you have to say, because this is the last we’re going to talk about volleyball until the bell rings.”

-*-*

“And then what happened?”

“Well the bell rang, and she immediately started talking about volleyball again.”

Takeda laughed hard, sliding his glasses down off his face to wipe away the tears at the corner of his eyes.

“Oh, goodness. I guess I really should have warned you. This Hinata-san is just as much of a firecracker as the earlier model.”

“You’re telling me!” Suga sighed, releasing some of the tension of the day as he sat down in the chair across from the vice principal’s desk. Still, something like curiosity pricked at the back of his mind. “A setter, though, huh?”

“Oh yes, she’s quite good. The whole girls team is, for the past two or three years now, but she is particularly gifted. She says she’s spent her whole life becoming best friends with the ball and it always does what she asks. And as silly as it sounds, she’s right.”

“Ugh,” Suga stuck his tongue out distastefully, but there was no real malice in it. “I hate prodigies. Especially prodigy setters.”

Takeda chuckled gently. Sugawara toyed with the zipper on his messenger bag, wrestling with whether or not to ask the question on the top of his tongue. No sooner had he decided against it than Takeda seemed to read his mind.

“You’re wondering why the boys’ volleyball club doesn’t have a coach anymore.”

“Hah?!” Suga blushed crimson, then rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Am I that predictable?”

“No, no! But, well, I think I’d feel maybe a bit slighted if you weren’t at least a little curious.”

“Alright, so you got me. Why doesn’t the team have a coach?”

“Mm,” Takeda hummed quietly, meditating on his thoughts for a moment as if, even though he had predicted the question, he himself wasn’t quite sure of the answer. “I think...in any relationship in life, whether that’s a romantic partnership or a familial bond or a business arrangement, or in this case, a team...it’s a truly rare thing to find people whose desires perfectly align. Maybe the closest we ever get is an overlap of sorts, where a group of unique journeys can work toward their own goals together, even as their paths inevitably diverge again. What made the Golden Year—if you don’t mind me calling it that—special wasn’t that we had talented players or a good coach or even the number of games you won. It was the fact that, for the sake of everyone there, you all took a year of your lives—a year of hard work, vulnerability, passion—and gambled it on the fact that every other person there would be willing to do the same. And nobody backed down from that challenge.”

Suga blinked, and was surprised to find himself misty-eyed. He still wasn’t sure exactly what Sensei was getting at, but it felt truer than maybe anything in the past 4 or 5 years of his life had. The framed photograph felt heavy in the bag around his shoulder. Weighty. Real.

“I think if that team could have played together forever,” Takeda continued, “Ukai would have coached himself into the grave, however long it took. But then, maybe not. All of you were growing and changing so dramatically every day...it wouldn’t have stayed the same team forever. It couldn’t have. Even today, if you got every one of those players back on the same court, it would be a different team entirely. Maybe for the better—who knows? All I know is that it wasn’t the same after you all left. Everybody felt that way, though I think we were afraid to say it. Some things were too easy, maybe. Others were impossibly hard. In the end I don’t think that made a difference. He stuck around until your underclassmen graduated, out of respect or loyalty or whatever else he might have called it. But then I think, eventually, he just couldn’t bear to stay and watch it become something he didn’t love.”

“You know, actually…” there was a brief, heavy pause in which Suga found himself holding his breath. Takeda suddenly broke into a wide grin and winked at him. “You remind me a lot of how he was back then!”

“Wha—?! No way, Sensei, don’t tease me like that!” 

“It’s true!” Takeda held his hands up earnestly, his smile softening into something kind and genuine. “Did you know, when I first badgered that poor man into coaching, he confessed to me that the reason he was hesitant to come back was because he was too afraid of confronting all the good memories he had here?”

Suga crossed his arms petulantly.

“Are you implying I’m  _ afraid  _ of coaching volleyball?”

“And for another thing,” Takeda continued, ignoring Suga completely as he pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose, “He was a brilliant and insightful volleyball analyst who wasn’t a standout player on his own team.”

“I’m not sure whether to feel praised or offended…”

“And,” the vice principal finished, as if he had just accomplished a particularly clever academic analysis, “You’re a setter.”

“Hmm?” Suga quirked his head to the side thoughtfully. What was that supposed to _ —oh _ . “That’s right, Coach Ukai was also a setter, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, although he didn’t see it that way...he was very specific on that front. He said ‘Setter is something I do when I have to, but all of my most important work has been on the sidelines.’ I remember that.” Takeda smiled, looking nowhere in particular, and something about it made Suga’s heart ache, like he was somehow intruding on a private moment. He wondered if any part of this conversation was still about him at all. “But I did get to watch him play, once.”

“How was he?”

Takeda paused for a thoughtful moment, considering the question. He tapped the stack of papers in his hands on the edge of the desk to settle them, running his fingers around the neat edges before carefully placing the bundle off to the side. Finally, he looked up at Suga with a shrug and a smile. 

“He was beautiful.”

It was a straightforward, perhaps profoundly simple answer. Suga wasn’t sure if the understanding he felt in that moment was something he suddenly arrived at or something he had always known, or, perhaps most likely, if it was something he could only now realize that he should have known all along. However it was that he knew it, the knowledge that Takeda had loved Ukai—perhaps still did—dispersed through his memories like ink through water, tinting every recollection, and he found a million questions suddenly springing to his tongue.  _ Do you still talk? What happened?  _ And, perhaps most painful of all... _ did he know? _

_ Takeda-sensei….did he know? Did you tell him? Would you, now, if you had the chance? Or are we both 8 years too late? _

He couldn’t quite bring himself to ask. Instead, he tugged absentmindedly at the zipper on his messenger bag again before remembering the initial reason he had stopped by.

“Oh! Sensei, I meant to thank you for the gift. And the card,” he added as an afterthought.

Takeda looked quite pleased with himself.

“Ohoho, isn’t that just the funniest thing? And you’re welcome. Like I said, it ended up in a folder of mine somehow and seemed like it needed passing along. I hope the frame is an alright choice.”

“Yes, thank you, it’s fine. I am curious though...why that picture specifically?”

“Hm?” It seemed this had not occurred to the older man, or perhaps on the contrary it had seemed so very obvious that he had assumed there was no reason to ask. “What do you mean?”

“I know for a fact there are better pictures of the team...I guess I was just curious what you liked about this one. Why you kept it.”

Takeda thought for a moment.

“I think I envied you.”

“You envied me?!” Suga nearly fell out of his chair in shock.

“What?! No! All of you,” Takeda clarified with a little laugh. 

“But why? Because of the training camp? That hill was brutal!”

Takeda shook his head almost wearily, and Suga felt suddenly very young and foolish again. He’d always been a good student, but this seemed like a lesson he just wasn’t getting the gist of no matter how hard he tried.

“No, because…” he fumbled his hands in the air as if looking for a way to make it make sense, blushing slightly as he went. “Because you were all so open with each other. So unafraid...and unashamed.” He sighed a little and smiled. “I don’t know if you’ve discovered this yet, but the best and worst part of being a teacher is seeing the ways in which the next generation has chances you never did. It’s quite shockingly easy, actually, to resent them for that. But it’s so much more rewarding to help them find their way.”

Suga felt like he was on the verge of making an important decision, but he hadn’t quite realized yet what it was. His feet were already carrying him to wherever it was he had to make it, though, and he was standing up and collecting his things before he finished realizing it.

“I...just remembered I have somewhere to be,” he managed, thoughts whirling rapidly as he offered a quick bow. “Thank you for everything, Sensei, I’ll see you tomorrow!”

“Take care, Sugawara-san.”

“Oh, Sensei, wait!” Suga grabbed the doorframe, pulling himself back quickly in the grip of an afterthought.

“Hmm?”

“I—I think you should call Ukai-san!” He was gone before he could see Takeda’s face turn a deep shade of crimson, or the man’s gaze flicker uncertainly—but hopefully—to his phone.

-*-*

_ “Sawamura Daichi! Wing spiker!” The boy bowed abruptly to the team seniors and introduced himself with a stern sort of intensity that barely seemed possible from a 15 year old—even one with broad shoulders and close-cropped hair and dark, serious eyes. Suga thought he recognized him from class, though it was a lot harder to look away from him here—there was a sort of grounded magnetism that seemed to anchor him to this volleyball court, as if he had always been and would always be here. As if, if you ever really needed to find him _ ,  _ all you would really have to do is show up and wait _ ...

Suga wasn’t sure what he was expecting to find here, but his feet had carried him all the way to the auxiliary gym at a near-breathless pace. It was empty, and he couldn’t tell if the sinking sensation in his stomach was disappointment or relief. He stopped, leaning with his hand on the doorframe, to catch his breath, and for a moment let his fingers wander over the wood to trace the peeling paint. Somewhere beneath what must have been a paint job from the last 8 years were three sets of hastily scratched initials—he didn’t quite remember putting them there but remembered that it was true, maybe from Asahi’s retelling of their last night there during one of their long-ago social visits. 

He missed Asahi. He missed Daichi. He missed them all. Maybe more than anything, he missed himself—or at least, the version of himself he became with all of them. What was it Takeda had been talking about? The gamble they had all taken on each other? Maybe he was right. Maybe it was about time to bet on something again.

“That’s him! Sugawara-sensei!”

Sugawara recognized Natsu’s voice even before he turned around to find her standing in front of a timid-looking pack of boys, pointing in his direction as if leading them into battle.

“Hinata-san! What brings you here?”

“Uhm,” one of the boys, a sturdy-looking first year of average height who was almost visibly shaking in his boots, spoke up. “Nacchan says you might agree to be our Coach? For the boys volleyball club? Is...is that true?”

Suga glanced over at Natsu, who was whistling idly and pointedly gazing at the clouds.

“Yep,” he said, adjusting his messenger bag on his shoulder and jabbing a thumb into his chest with what he hoped was an air of confidence. “I’m Sugawara-sensei, your new Coach and faculty adviser! I’m also a former National-level setter and a Karasuno alum, and once your assistant coach joins us next week, we’re going to make this team the greatest it’s ever been! Now who has the keys to this gym?”

A tall third year with sandy hair and freckles raised his hand enthusiastically and jumped forward to begin unlocking the gym. The boys murmured excitedly and started roughhousing as they pushed to get inside. Suga offered Hinata a thumbs up and a thank-you smile before turning to follow them. He took a deep breath and braced himself on the threshold before boldly stepping across. He may have taken up Takeda-sensei’s job, and he may have inherited Coach Ukai’s legacy, but he wasn’t either of them. If he was going to walk this path, he would do it his own way—but he wasn’t going to do it alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> One time, while working with a group of performers at a summer gig, one of our instructors gave a very beautiful and heartbreaking impromptu speech about how he—as a gay man growing up closeted during the AIDS crisis—felt a lot of bitterness toward our generation for the openness and ease with which so many people were able to be out and loud and vulnerable. But he said that getting to watch a group of young people live in a way he was never able to also made him feel deeply hopeful, even though he envied it. I think about that a lot. What a good teacher.
> 
> Anyway, I have feelings about Takeda.


	6. Where to Begin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing a fic where Suga coaches the volleyball team was a really cute and harmless idea until I suddenly realized I had to....make characters for that team. Oops. I was complaining about it to a friend, who suggested I always have them *just* offscreen and out of frame. Honestly that’s such a funny idea that it made me angry looking at the spreadsheet of names and positions I had just painstakingly put together, and even posting this now I still think they were right and I should have done it that way. Oh well.

_ > Dear Daichi-san, I hope this text message finds you well. I was hoping to ask a favor of you, if— _

No. Seriously? Too formal. If he still knew anything about Daichi, it was that a message like that would get a massive eye-roll before he even got to the end of the sentence.

_ > Heyyy Daichan! So, funny story about the volleyball team. Wanna come back to Karasuno and— _

Was he still allowed to call him Daichan? Were they on that level? It would be so awkward to start out overly familiar. But then what if he was the one who actually made things too unfamiliar when he didn’t want them to be? What had Daichi called him over the phone? Just Koushi, right? He could not remember. 

_ > ok so I may have already promised a gym full of boys an assistant coach so are you going to get your beautiful ass on a train back to karasuno or— _

Delete delete delete. He stared down at the phone clenched too tightly in his hand, as if he could somehow will it to write its own message drafts, and then maybe manufacture the courage to send them. It didn’t seem to be working. So much for taking chances.

“Coach, heads up!”

_ fwsssshTHWACK.  _

Suga felt the breeze as an errant serve missed his head by mere centimeters, ricocheting off the gymnasium wall and bouncing harmlessly into a slow roll. Iishi, the second-year wing spiker with big owlish eyes, a mess of greenish-brown hair, and a cannon of an arm which he apparently could not control came sprinting over to where Suga— _ Coach  _ Suga, now—stood slightly dazed, collecting his senses one by one.

“OhmygoshCoach, I’m sosorry, Ididn’tmeanto—“

“Iishi-kun!” the sandy-haired third year who had introduced himself as the captain after unlocking the gym yesterday jogged up to Iishi and placed a gentle hand on the other boy’s shoulder. “Cool it, ace! If you’d stop talking long enough to breathe, maybe you’d have better aim, huh?”

Iishi pulled the collar of his shirt up over his face and ran back to the court, yelling another haphazard apology as he went. The captain snorted and turned to offer a slight bow to Suga.

“Sorry, Coach! Won’t happen again!” 

Suga shook his head slightly to clear the lingering morning fog and checked his watch with a sigh. 6:50 AM. How long had he been here? He vaguely remembered agreeing to supervise open gym at 6:30...but the Monday afternoon Suga who made that promise had been significantly more optimistic than the Wednesday morning Suga who now had to pay for his choices. He stifled a yawn and smiled at the freckle-faced kid.

“Don’t sweat it. If he’s willing to hit that hard this early, I’ll risk a few facial features.”

The captain gave a little off-centered grin before collecting the ball at his feet and turning to go.

“Hang on a sec, Captain—Imai-san, was it?”

“Imai Asa, third year wing spiker, Coach!” he offered helpfully. “Usually the guys just call me Imasa though. Whatcha need?”

“An enormous coffee with too many sugars and three more hours in the day, but I’ll settle for the rundown on your team.”

Imasa cocked his head a bit, and Suga could almost see him trying to decide whether he was supposed to offer to run to the corner store for coffee. Rather than wait for him to figure it out—primarily because he couldn’t trust himself not to take advantage of the teen’s earnestness at this hour—Suga clarified.

“Just point out who your setter and libero are for right now, that’ll be great.”

“Oh! Okay. Lessee, our libero is right there in the grey t shirt and headband—“ Imasa pointed out a younger-looking boy with broad shoulders and a stocky build. “Ono Benjiro. He’s only a first year, but me and Kaneko saw him play last year and he came to a few practices last month before he started here. We, uh, we really needed more guys.”

“He’s a bit taller than what I’d expect,” Suga observed.

“Yeah, but wait’ll you see him dig,” Imasa grinned. “Kid throws himself at the ground with zero hesitation. Benji’s pretty timid off the court, but he ain’t afraid of hitting the floor.”

Liberos. Absolutely unfathomable, the lot of them.

“Hm. Noted. And the setter?”

“Yonezawa Ichiro. Second year. That’s him over there, the tall one with the ponytail.”

“Is he consistent?”

“Hell no. Oops, sorry Coach,” he looked fleetingly sheepish about his language. Suga shrugged it off and Imasa seemed to relax visibly. “I mean, not so much, no. But every new idea this team ever has comes from him.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mhmm. He’s always watching old videos or international matches and coming in here with some crazy scheme he wants to try. We don’t really have anyone else who knows how to do what he’s asking us for and I don’t think he has the words to explain it. He just sees something cool and then gets it in his head.”

Fleeting memories flickered through Sugawara’s mind—images of late nights in auxiliary gyms in the Tokyo summer, of everything that came after those long, arduous, hilly days. Of how many great things came from not knowing when to quit. He grinned.

“Okay. Thanks, Imasa. Go back to serving practice.”

“ _ Hai _ , Coach!”

The clock ticked away as Suga traced a hundred more serves with thoughtful eyes. He forgot all about the time, the sleep he hadn’t gotten, the coffee that would have to wait. He felt, in fact, very wide awake. A good-natured captain, a gutsy libero, an imaginative setter...these were all tools he felt certain they could use, if he could only figure out how. That challenge alone was a little enticing.

> _ Hey, I know this seems sudden, but what are you doing this weekend? I think you should come meet our volleyball team. They’re good kids, and they could use— _

“Good morning, Sugawara-san.”

“Oh, good morning, Michimiya-san, I didn’t see you come in.”

“Well, I hope this isn’t too impolite of me to say…” The sentence trailed off expectantly as Hana glanced down at him from where she stood at the lounge’s only copy machine.

Suga looked up from his phone and the coffee he had completely forgotten in his own hand.

“Hm? No, that’s okay, go ahead.”

“You look a mess. Is your week going okay?”

He blinked. Did he look that bad? Maybe he forgot to comb out his hair this morning. Come to think of it, he wasn’t entirely sure he remembered his first three periods. Maybe he was a little distracted.

“I’m good! Just, ah, didn’t sleep great last night.”

“I heard the boys volleyball club was off to an early start this morning, too. Did Hinata-san twist your arm? She’s been trying to recruit every male teacher she sees into coaching for the past year and a half.”

“No,” Suga half-lied. “I was very grateful for the opportunity. She just...mentioned that the position was available.”

> _ Word on the street is there’s a coaching position available at Karasuno— _

Would Dachi take that seriously though? It was a little misleading. Maybe directness was good. After all, it had to count for  _ something  _ that he was involved. That it was a personal ask. He wanted it to count for something, anyway.

_ > Daichi! Get this—I’m coaching the boys volleyball club at Karasuno now, and if you aren’t too good for your old pal Suga these days— _

Ugh. No. That felt downright gross. His chalk skittered to a stop on the board and he suddenly felt the pin-drop silence of two dozen teenaged eyes on his back. Shit. What had he been writing? He reread his own scrawlings and then looked down at the book in his hand. Thankfully the passage he was copying was at the top of the page and easy to spot. That was close. 

“Err, okay, any questions?”

_ > Question for you, Daichi-kun, if you’ve got a minute. _

He skimmed his grading pen absentmindedly over the stack of yesterday’s test forms, looking but not seeing as the class read silently to themselves. How could he have a degree in education and still be struggling this hard with sending one text message?

_ > Actually maybe this would be better as a phone call.  _

_ > Actually maybe this would be better over coffee. _

_ > Actually maybe this would be better over dinner. Or drinks.  _

“Sugaaaa. We always do drinks on Wednesdays!” Noya was literally pulling him off the couch.

“Don’t  _ we always  _ me, I’ve been here like a week and a half!”

“And you’re a part of the household now, so you’re coming! Put your phone down!”

“I have practice in the morning—“ he protested weakly.

“So does Kanoka-chan, but she’s strong enough to do both!”

“Kanoka-chan could probably bench press a car! Kanoka-chan survived a childhood with Tanaka! I am not Kanoka!”

> _ You remember Kanoka, right? Well she and I are both volleyball coaches now and I thought, hey, you know who else would be really great at this— _

That wasn’t right either. Suga felt his frustration rising along with his blood alcohol level and decided to turn off his phone to avoid any further embarrassment.

“Did you just cut  _ yourself  _ off?” Tanaka snorted. “Man, that is some self control!”

“There’s nothing wrong with knowing your own limits,” Suga declared, somewhat defensively and with something of a pout on his face.

“Sugawara-kun,” Tanaka placed a hand on Suga’s shoulder and clenched his other fist determinedly, his eyes glimmering with restrained intensity. “You’re never going to get anywhere in life letting yourself be ruled by the boundaries you’ve placed on yourself.”

“Wh—you don’t get to pretend to be giving sage advice when you’re talking about  _ getting drunk!” _

> _ screw coaching just save me from these people _

Suga dragged a hand down his bleary face, already deleting the last draft as he stumbled toward the kitchen for a glass of water. In what kind of cruel world was it fair and allowable to have a hangover on a Thursday morning?

“Mornin’, Suga-san,” Kanoka greeted him, chipper as promised, with her duffel bag already slung over one shoulder.

“How are you….like this?” Suga managed, crumpling onto the countertop as the faucet slowly filled his glass. He watched it overflow, too tired to move a hand to spin the knob again. Kanoka politely observed for a moment before reaching over and doing it for him.

“Well for one thing I haven’t been keeping your schedule all week. And for another, I don’t let Ryu and Noya neg me into going drink for drink on a Wednesday night.”

> _ ok so the girls volleyball coach is very rude actually daichi i think you better not come _

Kanoka sighed as Suga tapped bitterly on his phone.

“You know, usually I would jog over to the campus, but if you’d like I can drive over this morning and give you a ride.”

“Spare me your pity,” he mumbled, tapping and deleting several more times.

“I keep ibuprofen and Pocky in the glove compartment.”

> _ Hey Dai, it’s Koushi, just wondering if you’d be interested in co-coaching the Karasuno Boys Volleyball Club? The morning practices are pretty early but I swear it’s not too bad! :) _

Suga sipped at the corner store coffee in his hand as he pondered the text. Not the worst version yet, but still.

“Hey Coach! How is it?”

“The coffee, or that block Iishi-san just stuffed you with?” he looked up from his phone and grinned. “They’re both pretty good, thanks!”

The color drained from Imasa’s face but he smiled bravely and sprinted back to the drill with renewed vigor. Suga glanced down at the three other coffees on the bench. More than one team member had showed up to practice with an offering this morning, which had gone quite a long way toward not only improving his mood, but reaffirming his decision to step up and accept the position. Still….that was only half the battle.

> _ Could I maybe pick your brain about defensive strategies sometime soon? I took on coaching a volleyball club and they need more than just my expertise, haha. Wish I had your old playbook but what can you do! _

Morning classes.

> _ Hey, weird question—have you ever thought about coaching? I bet you’d be great at it _

Afternoon classes.

> _ Do you ever miss high school volleyball? _

Afterschool practice.

> _ Do you ever miss the team? _

The walk home.

> _ Do you ever miss me? _

Evening 2-on-2s.

Delete, delete, delete.

Suga sighed, sprawled out on his futon, staring at his phone screen. Maybe he was always going to be staring at his phone screen. Maybe this was his life now. 

> _ So I’m freaking out a little because I’m back home and all these people know me from the volleyball team but nobody seems to remember that I was barely even on it and i don’t know how to do this on my own because i never did it on my own, any of it, it was always supposed to be the three of us against the world together or me cheering you on from the sidelines but we never practiced it this way— _

> _ unrelated to anything i’m thinking it’s possible there’s some stuff from high school i never really finished working through and also i’m like, really bad at texting  _

> _ Hey, it’s Friday morning! TGIF, am I right? Any big weekend plans? _

> _ hey sawamura you wanna know something embarrassing, i’ve rewritten this text over thirty times lol _

> _ volleyball.gif _

Suga sat down hard on the schoolyard steps and pressed his phone against his forehead in frustration, gritting his teeth to keep from shouting. It wasn’t particularly effective. He shoved his phone deep in his pocket and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. This was all too much and he needed to think. Or maybe to stop thinking, to get out of his own head for a bit and relax. Maybe he should just turn his phone off for the weekend and focus on the other things he needed to get done. He’d call the realtor back and go look at those apartments tomorrow, maybe buy a new pair of running shoes and join Nishinoya for jogging, get ahead on lesson plans, and actually get a good night’s sleep. He could even start by picking up dinner on the way home as an apology to his roommates for being so grouchy this week.

Having a plan made Suga feel much better, and the sense of calm that flooded his mind as he stood up, stretched out his limbs, and shouldered his messenger bag was a welcome relief. The walk home felt like something of a cleansing ritual, and every little accomplishment along the way lifted his spirits significantly. By the time he approached the house, after a series of surprisingly easy back and forth phone calls to set up apartment viewings and with plastic bags full of delicious-smelling takeout in hand, he had managed to put the week’s extended Daichi-related stress session far from his mind. The lights were on in the living room as the evening twilight was just setting in, and muffled warm laughter could be heard emanating from the front door.  _ Great _ , Suga thought with a grin.  _ This is exactly what I needed tonight. _ He twisted the doorknob and found it unlocked, pushing in easily.

“Honey, I’m home,” he called out in his best American sitcom voice, slipping off his shoes and closing the door behind himself. “And I come bearing gifts!”

“Ooh, smells like ginger pork,” Nishinoya hopped up from his place on the couch and leapt over to examine the bags. “Hey, we got you a present too,” he declared, jabbing a thumb back over his shoulder as he fished a small container out of the takeout order—but Suga didn’t hear him. Because sitting cross-legged on the floor, lazily leaning back as he turned to look up at Suga with an offset, easygoing grin that made his heart stutter to a stop, was Sawamura Daichi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! This is an approximate recreation of how long it takes me to send any text message to someone I haven’t spoken to in a while. It’s...an involved process.


	7. Settling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to rewrite the back half of this one like six times because it kept going somewhere other than my carefully laid outline. Again. In the end I gave in to self-indulgence and let it become something else because that’s where it wanted to go. I like that Suga is a perfect angel until his teammates bring out his chaotic impulses, so this is...a lot of that.

“—and then I was like, ‘well you better go and catch it!’ and he just stared at me for like ten seconds—honest, 10, i counted—and then just said ‘I see.’” Nishinoya furrowed his eyebrows in a stern, serious hardline, flattening his hair to his forehead with both hands in a surly monotone. “Can you believe it?! Just, ‘I see.’ So then I had to explain the entire joke and anyway no, I’m not allowed at Kageyama’s practices anymore.”

The rest of them erupted into laughter, tears streaming down their faces. Suga felt like his chest was going to collapse from lack of oxygen, and Tanaka was sprawled helpless on the couch, one hand clapped to his forehead like he was about to faint dead away. Daichi clutched his near-empty beer bottle like a lifeline, his face streaky and shiny in the dim lamplight as he choked for breath in between waves of laughter. Nishinoya, with a Cheshire Cat grin, proudly surveyed the damage of his handiwork.

“Oh man, that one n-never gets old,” Tanaka managed, making no attempt to sit back up.

“Speaking of getting old,” Suga groaned, checking his watch.  _ 1:12 AM.  _ “I really need to get some shut-eye. I have to meet with the realtor at 9.”

Noya and Tanaka booed and jeered. 

“Aww, Suga, you’re really just gonna leave me with these guys?” Daichi’s warm, dark eyes—which Suga had up until now very skillfully and with great willpower avoided losing himself in—were fixed on him with such friendly, easy confidence he really thought he might just melt on the spot.

_ I could just cancel the appointment,  _ he thought instantly.  _ I don’t need an apartment that badly. Or I could just pull an all-nighter it really can’t be that hard it’s only 8 more hours and I— _

“Well,” Suga replied lightly, his mouth more stubborn than his brain by a half, “If somebody had  _ told me  _ you were going to be staying here tonight I wouldn’t have made any morning plans.”

“Ooooh, you messed up, bro!” Tanaka jabbed a finger in Daichi’s direction accusingly.

“You were the ones who wanted to keep it a surprise!” Daichi protested.

Noya cackled.

“Yeah, and it was totally worth it for the look on Sugawara’s face. You looked like you were gonna pass out, Suga!”

“Looked like you saw a ghost!” Tanaka crowed.

“A sexy ghost. From your past.”

“With a dark secret!”

“That  _ you murdered! _ ” Nishinoya leapt to his feet with a dramatic flourish and promptly lost his balance. 

“Oh come on, that was  _ one time _ ,” Suga retorted. “And you would have done the same, if you knew what I’d been through.”

Daichi snorted, grinning as he got to his feet and collected the scattered beer bottles, placing them in one of the discarded paper takeout bags before offering a hand to Suga.

“Come on, don’t let these guys keep you up. If you have to go look at places in the morning, I’ll just come with you.”

Suga took the outstretched hand, trying to keep his pulse from skyrocketing at how warm and solid and real it felt. He didn’t have time to fully process the offer before he was hoisted smoothly to his feet, making an ungraceful and surprised noise in the process. He stumbled slightly and was caught against Daichi’s broad chest, head reeling, through from vertigo or intoxication of one sort or another, he couldn’t say. 

“You want to waste your morning helping me look at apartments?”

Daichi laughed, but didn’t let go. 

“Oh, I never said anything about helping. But if you buy me breakfast, I’ll at least keep you company.”

There was a gleam in his eyes, a challenge in the set of his smile, that just made Suga feel like being difficult. His lowered inhibitions made it even harder to resist.

“Well normally I only buy a man breakfast  _ after  _ he’s kept me company,” he replied smoothly, finding his balance again with a teasing smirk. “But I guess I can make an exception.”

Daichi, caught utterly off guard by the verbal parry, fumbled his words for a moment as Tanaka and Noya howled with laughter in the background. Suga let him suffer for a moment, then grinned and wrapped his arms around Daichi in an affectionate embrace. He was relieved to find this, too, hadn’t changed: that even under the hammer of his heartbeat and the conflicting feelings churning in his stomach and the wild race of his thoughts, there was a part of him capable of simply loving the best friend he’d ever had and holding the warmth of him close.

“It’s so good to see you, Daichan,” he mumbled, tears squeezing out from the corners of his eyes as he held on a little tighter. Daichi chuckled softly and squeezed him back.

“You too, Koushi. Let’s not make it five years next time, huh?”

“Five years?” Suga pulled back and checked his watch. “You have about six hours, Captain. I’m not waiting on you!”

It was maybe the biggest lie he’d ever told.

-*-*

_ The autumn air was crisp but not unpleasant as it scraped and whistled along the neighborhood streets, kicking up leaves and collecting those disturbed by the trudge of schoolboy shoes down the hill. The sun had set probably just toward the end of practice, leaving the way home lit only by the dying embers of an orange sky. The first stars were twinkling up above, little half visible pinpricks coming into view as purple twilight crept up along behind them. A strong gust blew and Suga buried his face in the zippered neck of his windbreaker jacket, squinting to keep his eyes from watering. He was trying not to think about the fact that his hands had turned to ice in his pockets, or the reason why. _

_ Daichi walked along beside him, lost in thoughts of his own, occasionally sweeping a leg out to kick at a stray pebble and send it bouncing along the street. Usually Asahi walked home this far with them, but he had stayed behind tonight to go with the first-years to the corner store. Apparently Nishinoya had been hounding him about it all week, and Suga suspected it wasn’t just the ace’s timidity that led him to accept the invitation. He’d tease Asahi about it later, probably once he got home and felt certain a text message wouldn’t blow up his friend’s composure in front of the wrong person. For now he was his own sort of preoccupied, turning over words and running scenarios in his mind to the point of obsession. _

_ “Suga-kun?” _

_ “Huh?” he snapped to attention, meeting Daichi’s inquiring look unexpectedly. He felt a little shiver run down his spine. “Sorry, what?” _

_ “I said, it feels pretty weird, doesn’t it?” _

_ “What does?” _

_ “The third years being done,” Daichi stated simply and solemnly. “This will be our first tournament without them.” _

_ “Oh! Yeah, I guess it will,” Suga hummed in agreement. “Weird.” His hands were absolutely freezing by this point; he almost couldn’t stand it. _

_ “I guess that means I can start making you call me Captain now,” Daichi teased with a grin. _

_ “You can also walk home alone, if you want,  _ **_Captain_ ** _ ,” Suga retorted, sticking his tongue out. “I’m not above a mutiny.” He finally couldn’t take it anymore and pulled his hands out of his pockets, rubbing them briskly together before breathing warm air onto his fingers. _

_ Daichi grinned even more broadly at the comeback, but dropped it in curiosity as he noticed Suga’s behavior.  _

_ “Hm? What’s wrong?” _

_ “It’s nothing. My hands are just freezing,” he explained, stuffing them back in his pockets with a blush he hoped the sunset helped to disguise. _

_ “Really? It’s not that cold outside.” Daichi frowned a little, looking around as if he could somehow locate the particular cold that he himself had not yet noticed. Suga’s heart skipped a little in his chest. _

_ “No, I know, it’s just my hands,” he pushed his hair back awkwardly out of anxious habit, carding his fingers through the messy silver tangle. His breath caught as Daichi grabbed his hand on the way down, gently tugging the other out of the pocket where it still hid.  _

_ “Do you have bad circulation?” Daichi asked while examining Suga’s fingers, his brows furrowed in a concern that was almost silly for how serious it seemed. _

_ “Uh, sorta? They just get real cold when I’m nervous,” Sugawara admitted. Unlike his hands, his face felt uncomfortably hot. _

_ “Nervous? Are you nervous now?” Daichi cupped Suga’s hands in between his own blissfully warm ones. His eyes still read as blithely curious, vaguely perplexed, and Suga absolutely could not look into them. _

_ “I dunno, a little?” _

_ “Because of the captains thing?” _

_ “Sure! Well, no. Not exactly. Uh—“ he searched for something, anything else to look at. _

_ “What’s up then? You can tell me anything, Vice Captain.” Daichi smiled, a warm and comfortable smile, warm and comfortable like his hands. Suga squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fingers tightly. _

_ “Daichan, I’m gay,” he blurted out, wincing as the words left his mouth. He had wanted to say this, had been meaning to say this, but the actual act of it was so terrifying and huge he regretted it the instant it happened. _

_ “Oh,” Daichi said simply. He didn’t flinch or drop his hands, just stood there. Suga opened his eyes, perplexed, his heart hammering away in his chest and his hands still glowing with the other boy’s warmth. Daichi was still just looking at him with the same straightforward curious smile. “I mean, okay. But why are you nervous?” _

_ Suga froze for a second, both of them staring blankly at the other, until the corner of his mouth twitched up in a grin and uncontrollable laughter took him over. He giggled wildly and soon Daichi was doing the same, both of them sharing a wild, unrestrained sort of euphoria. Suga brought the heel of his hand up to his eyes to wipe away tears of laughter and caught a glimpse of his best friend and captain, framed against the glow of the autumn sunset, and felt his heart plummet into his stomach. _

_ Shit. _

“Shit!” Suga cursed under his breath, pulling his hands out of his pockets to rub them together, breathing warm air onto his fingertips and whining softly. “Ugggh. Stupid.”

Daichi chuckled fondly, stepping in front of him and holding out his own hands in offering. 

“Still?”

“Only when I’m nervous!” Suga protested, but he gratefully slipped his ice-cold palms into Daichi’s as the other man hissed with a sharp intake of breath. “I know, I’m sorry.”

“That bad today, huh?” Daichi clasped his hands entirely around Suga’s, enveloping them neatly in a little pocket of warmth the same way he’d done a hundred times in high school. The ritual of it made them both smile.

“An apartment is a big deal! I deserve to be a little anxious,” Suga stated with playful indignity. 

“You’re worse than Asahi ever was,” Daichi teased him, but there was no malice in it.

“You bite your tongue.”

They were interrupted by a polite throat-clearing sound a few feet away. Immediately and instinctively pulling his hands away, Suga snapped his head around to see a young woman in a bright floral blouse flashing them a million-watt smile.

“Hi there! So sorry to interrupt! Sugawara-san?”

“Oh, um, that’s me, hey!” 

“I’m Mimi, your real estate agent—we spoke on the phone yesterday, it’s great to meet you!” Mimi had the sort of plastic overfamiliarity that Suga often found himself dreading in other teachers or restaurant staffers, but something about the stiff eagerness of her smile set him particularly on edge for reasons he was unsure of _._ She seemed to be looking at the both of them without actually making eye contact. “I’m so sorry, Sugawara-san, I didn’t realize we’d have someone else joining us today! You must be Sugawara-san’s…”

“Hi,” Daichi raised a casual hand, good-natured and unflappable as always. “It’s Sawamura. I’m Suga’s friend.”

“Mhmm,” she chirped. “That’s great! So, Sugawara-san, just so you know, all the properties we were planning on seeing today are 1-bedroom, do we need to change plans…?”

“No,” Suga raised a confused eyebrow. “No, that’s fine, they all looked pretty good online. I don’t take up that much space, I promise.”

“Okay!” the realtor laughed, her voice seeming to have risen by a few decibels. “Just checking! The home search is all about finding exactly what’s right for you and your situation!”

Suga exchanged a confused glance with Daichi, who shrugged, completely unfazed, as if to say  _ beats me. _ Mimi had already turned to lead them up the driveway where they had met, pulling out a ring of keys as her high heels clicked brightly on the pavement.

“—and the landlord is super easygoing, so I imagine you wouldn’t have any problems at all, in fact I see here on the notes that the downstairs neighbors are another young couple, so—“

Suddenly realization hit Suga like a bullet train. The warring impulses of self-indulgence and self-preservation crept up simultaneously as he glanced over at Daichi again. Mimi had opened the door and ushered them inside and, seeing an opportunity, Suga quickly grabbed Daichi’s wrist and tugged him past the realtor. 

“Hey, this is great Mimi, we’re gonna go look at the kitchen if you could give us a minute, thaaanks!”

Once they had a wall and some slightly tacky cabinetry behind them, Suga exhaled sharply and leaned back against a counter, collecting his thoughts.

“You know, call me crazy, but—“ Daichi observed dryly, “I think Mimi-san might be a tiny bit high-strung.”

Suga rolled his eyes and punched Daichi lightly on the shoulder, but couldn’t fully resist a smile.

“Stop,” he hissed, trying not to snicker, “she’ll hear you! She thinks we’re an  _ item _ , Daichi. That’s why she’s spazzing out.”

“What? Why?” Daichi instinctively moved to peek around the corner and Suga pulled him back.

“Why does she think we’re…?”

“No, I mean why is that a reason to spaz out?”

Suga stared flatly at him.

“This may shock and alarm you, Daichan, but some folks are uncomfortable around gay people.”

Daichi crossed his arms thoughtfully, the same sort of stern concern on his face that Suga had seen a million times before.

“Are you okay?”

“What? Yeah, I’m fine, this happens, I just needed to let you know—“

“So...should we keep being a couple?” Daichi grinned.

Suga felt his jaw drop to the floor and his brain flatline. There was no possible way this was happening. He must have misheard, must have misinterpreted, there was no possible scenario in which Sawamura Daichi was asking him out after  _ a decade  _ just on a whim in the middle of an apartment search—

“Wh. What?”

Daichi jabbed a thumb over his shoulder.

“You know, keep up the act. Just to mess with her a little.”

Suga laced his fingers behind his head as he collected himself. How unfair, he thought, that Daichi could mess with his heart so terribly and so easily, and with the best of intentions.

“Why would you do that?” he asked, trying to keep something like hope from growing in his chest.

“Why?” Daichi repeated, as if confused. As if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Because even if she’s wrong about us, if she’s uncomfortable with who you are, she deserves to be uncomfortable. And you shouldn’t be spending this entire time second guessing yourself or apologizing.” He placed his hands on Suga’s shoulders, steadying him with a smile, just like he used to, just like Suga wanted desperately to believe he always would. “You’re gonna be in control this morning, and you’re gonna find an apartment you absolutely love. Just maybe not this one, Koushi, because this kitchen sucks.”

Suga giggled a little at that in spite of himself and finally let himself relax into Daichi’s touch, into Daichi’s level gaze, into the sharp heat clutching his chest like a molten vice because it was so  _ unfair  _ that Daichi could care so much and in none of the right ways but he’d take it, he’d always take it, he was no stranger to settling if it meant keeping hope alive.

“It’s not that bad—“

“It  _ sucks,  _ Koushi. There’s no room in here for anything.”

“I am one person, Daichan, I doubt that’s going to matter…” he trailed off as Daichi raised a challenging eyebrow, leaving an unspoken invitation on the floor. Suga sighed, smiled, rolled his eyes, relented. “...Except for all of the time we will be spending here together in delicious sin, probably surrounded by our many other deviant friends in an unnatural lifestyle.”

“Sugawara-san?” the realtor’s voice rang from the hallway as she knocked on the doorframe to the kitchen with that same plastic smile. “How are we feeling about the kitchen?”

He turned to respond, jumping ever so slightly as Daichi draped an arm lazily over his shoulder with the world’s most unbothered smile, and couldn’t help but notice the way Mimi’s facade stretched uncomfortably. For some reason any sympathy or patience he’d had was replaced by that stubborn streak in him, no doubt bolstered by Daichi’s brazenness. He felt very young and very mischievous again as he smiled innocently and replied.

“You know what, Mimi-chan? I think what we’re really interested in is the bedroom.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading! All the feedback has been so kind! It gets me amped to write the next part, too!
> 
> This was supposed to end in a different, slightly more angsty place but the chapter ran long and the pacing got shifted, so I decided to let them be happy for a minute instead while I reworked my outline. You’re welcome, and I apologize for next time in advance.


	8. Nice Receive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get your shit together, Daichi.

Despite the obvious complications for both his sanity and his blood pressure, Suga had to admit Daichi’s nefarious game really did make apartment shopping a much more thoroughly enjoyable experience. The hardest part of it all ended up not being keeping himself from getting too carried away, but actually keeping  _ up _ with Daichi, who seemed bound and determined to give the realtor a heart attack.

“Kou-chan, do you think we’d have room for the loveseat here?”

“Kou-chan, don’t you wish this shower was a little bigger?”

“Kou-chan, these walls are a little thin. Who did you say lives on the other side? Do you think they’ll mind?”

It was almost painfully difficult to keep a straight face, but Suga knew better than anyone else how to spar with a smile, especially where Daichi was involved.

“Oh, don’t worry about the loveseat, we can just downsize and share the armchair.”

“I think the shower won’t be a problem, Daichan, we don’t have company that often.”

“I thought you liked the walls this way!”

Unfortunately, the first several apartments really were a waste of time, and Suga was grateful that Daichi—when he wasn’t being purposefully obnoxious—actually had an excellent eye for identifying potential structural issues and being a sounding board for Suga’s thoughts. It was an alarmingly easy dynamic to fall back into, and Suga had to somewhat forcibly remind himself (more than once) that Daichi’s presence was not a selling point in any of these options, or even a guarantee at any point beyond, presumably, this afternoon when he had to go back to the life and obligations he had taken a break from to be here. It was maybe for that reason that Suga found himself warring with the decision to call it quits for the day, even as the search had turned up nothing exciting. He was tired of looking at disappointing apartments and dealing with a pushy realtor, but reluctant to ask what came next whenever they finished. Eventually, however, they came to the end of the list that Suga had put together.

“So what are we thinking?” Mimi asked, clapping her hands together as Suga sat at someone else’s dining room table, poring over photographs he’d taken over the course of the morning while Daichi idly played with his hair.

“I don’t know,” Suga admitted. “None of these are really jumping out at me so far.”

“Have you rented before?” she asked, seeming to pick up on his hesitancy.

“Yeah, one or two different places in college and immediately afterwards, but…”

“Have you...rented  _ together _ before?” she asked delicately.

“No,” Suga replied, honestly. 

“Well,” Mimi offered with a smile. “A lot of people find that they have more anxiety going into a property search when they feel the personal stakes are higher. Even folks who have been content to stay anywhere temporarily might have more hesitation once they start to feel they’re looking to put down roots. That’s perfectly normal.”

Suddenly Suga realized something—about himself, about his home search, about every decision he’d made since applying to this job on a whim, and he thought again about Takeda and what had started to feel almost like an ultimatum.  _ Maybe you weren’t done with Karasuno. _

“I’m looking for something that feels more like home,” he admitted—as much to himself as to the realtor. “Somewhere I can see myself—er, us—staying for a while. Maybe a long while. I don’t want to just pick something I don’t love and tell myself it’s okay since I’ll be leaving anyway.”

Something pricked at Daichi’s chest just then, a feeling he hadn’t examined closely enough to identify, and he regarded Suga curiously but said nothing.

“Well,” Mimi offered, her spirits seemingly restored at the possibility of making a deal today after all. “I know we hadn’t been discussing any purchase options with you two, just rentals, but there is one more property close by I can show you if you’d be willing to consider a rent-to-own. Sort of a happy compromise.”

Suga glanced up at Daichi, who just shrugged noncommittally, his thoughts clearly elsewhere. He turned back to Mimi with a certain nod.

“Let’s do it.”

-*-*

The last property was nothing like the others. It actually wasn’t even an apartment at all, but a small house, tucked away in an awkward spot at the end of a somewhat inconvenient street. It seemed stuck in between inspirations, somehow, as if someone had taken an old traditional home and tried to give it a facelift before deciding halfway through that they preferred the original. Suga fell in love with it immediately. 

“I want this,” he said, turning to Daichi barely two minutes after stepping inside.

“You want—?”

“This house. I want to wake up and drink my coffee in that garden. I want to grade papers in that tatami room. I want to do passing drills with Noya and Tanaka in that yard and then kick them out and fall asleep in that bedroom.” Suga was fiercely animated, and Daichi recognized in those familiar eyes a sort of set, stubborn determination he had almost forgotten about. He was about to tease Suga about where he fit into all of this, but thought better of it as he realized their game was unnecessary here. Suga was making a big, serious decision, and now that it meant something in a real way, there was no need for playacting. He was surprised to realize how disappointing that felt, burying it in favor of smiling and letting Suga’s enthusiasm carry the moment.

“You’re sure about this?” he asked—but it was gentle, trusting. And he already knew the answer.

“Yeah,” Suga replied, his eyes glinting. “I am.”

Daichi shivered a little. In a lot of ways, Suga was the most easygoing person he’d ever met—quick to forgive, ready to smile, playful and supportive and self-sacrificing to what Daichi might consider a fault. But when he wanted something— _ really  _ wanted it, and allowed himself to—there was simply no alternative. 

“Okay,” Daichi smiled, draping his arm over Suga’s shoulders again in a show of support. “Let’s go talk to Mimi.”

-*-*

For all the weight of the decision itself, the process seemed almost surreally quick to Daichi. One minute he was watching his best friend swoon about the property he was determined to call home for maybe the majority of his upcoming life—a frankly unfathomable level of commitment, if Daichi were being honest with himself—the next they were walking out of the house and down the neighborhood streets toward the heart of town, his arm still slung around Suga as it had been when they waved goodbye to the realtor and thanked her for her help. He hadn’t seen a particular reason to move it yet. 

“And that’s it?”

“That’s it,” Suga replied, grinning brightly. “She puts in the offer for me, and then she’ll let me know if I get approved. Then there’s paperwork, or something boring like that. But I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”

Daichi chuckled, feeling very fond of that smile and the person attached to it. As he was this morning—mischievous, animated, enthusiastic—it really seemed Suga hadn’t aged a day. His hair was trimmed a bit neater than it ever had been in high school, his shoulders a bit broader, his face a bit less boyish, the lines and angles of it more defined, but the person made up by all of those things was so utterly and undeniably familiar that it almost messed with Daichi’s head a bit. He felt a little guilty for reasons he didn’t understand and a little jealous for reasons he wasn’t prepared to explore. More than either of those, though, he just felt...comfortable. As if it was the most natural and predictable part of his day to be walking down the street side by side, in the bright radius of that grin.

“Are you excited?”

“To get out of Tanaka’s guest room?! Uh, obviously! I’ve had more hangovers in the past two weeks than in the years since university  _ combined.  _ My friends are bad for my health.”

“Present company excluded?” Daichi smiled as innocently as he could manage.

Suga snorted disbelievingly, but Daichi got the grin he wanted again.

“You’re the worst of all of them. Showing up unannounced. Terrorizing local realtors. You’re gonna give me a heart attack, Sawamura.”

“Aww, no  _ Daichan _ anymore?”

“You can have  _ Daichan  _ back when you’ve earned it. Hmm?” Suga’s phone suddenly chirped to life, lighting up the home screen with messages. He swiped and tapped out something in response before glancing up at Daichi apologetically. “I have to run over to the school for something, is that okay? It’s not far from here.”

“Sure. I wasn’t planning on heading out til later tonight anyway, I’ve got nowhere else to be. As long as you’re okay with me tagging along,” he amended. There was a possibility he’d already overstayed his welcome, he reasoned. Daichi had never really been too much in the habit of reading particularly far into other people’s reactions to him, trusting that if someone really wanted him to know something they would just tell him. All the same, he supposed he  _ had _ sort of taken over Suga’s weekend at this point.

“Yes, I am okay with you coming along,” Suga rolled his eyes, playfully jabbing an elbow into Daichi’s stomach. “In fact, I’d like it very much if you did, so there. You have once again played directly into my hands.”

“That’ll teach me.”

“Speaking of teaching…” Suga trailed off for a moment, glancing back up at Daichi to read his face. “Have you ever given it any thought?”

“What?” Daichi laughed in surprise. “Me? That’s a fun joke, Suga-kun. What would I even teach?”

“Anything,” Suga shrugged. “Volleyball.”

“What, you mean like coaching?”

“Sure.”

“Where?”

“Here.”

Daichi almost started to laugh, but the look on Suga’s face caused it to die in his throat. Somehow, Koushi was dead serious.

“At Karasuno, you mean.”

“Yes.”

Daichi frowned, suddenly very aware of the familiar route their feet were taking them. He had assumed Suga needed to stop by his classroom, or an administrative office, or maybe to touch base with another teacher. It had never entered his mind that they would be going to the auxiliary gym.

“Yeah, I don’t think so, Koushi. I think I had my share. I’m done with Karasuno.”

They walked a few paces in silence before Suga, pulling a ring of keys out of his pocket, replied quietly.

“Maybe Karasuno wasn’t done with you.”

Daichi wanted to laugh, wanted to say  _ what kind of cryptic bullshit is that, Kou-chan,  _ wanted to punch him in the shoulder and tell him to stop acting so weird, but he was interrupted by the sight of several teenaged boys suddenly darting excitedly out of the club room and towards Suga.

“Sugawara-sensei! Thanks a million!”

“See, Kaneko-kun, I  _ told  _ you Suga-sensei would come through—“

“Iishi, you’re the one who forgot the keys in the first place!”

“I didn’t think Imasa was gonna call a Saturday practice!”

Suga jangled the keys tauntingly and tossed them to a boy with freckles and an air of easy authority, who caught them effortlessly.

“Nice receive, Captain,” Suga teased. “Now next time you decide to be an overachiever, don’t drag my weekend into it.”

“Sorry, Coach-sensei!” The freckle-faced kid bowed and gestured to the other boys to follow him as he wrangled the gym doors open. 

“Coach-sensei?” Daichi questioned, turning to Suga. He had pulled his arm back from Suga’s shoulder as the boys showed up, but now he felt awkward, like he couldn’t seem to remember where his hands went otherwise, so he settled for shoving them in his pockets. He was uncomfortable, and unsure why. 

“Sawamura-san, this is the Karasuno Boys Volleyball Club,” Suga explained coolly. “Boys, say hey.”

“Heyyy!”

“Heyo!”

“Sawamura-san?!” a willowy blonde third-year with a bubble tea and a  _ WAY OF THE BLOCKER  _ t-shirt gaped at him, wide-eyed. “ _ The  _ Sawamura-san? Karasuno alum, number 1 Sawamura Daichi?”

“Neko-saaaaan,” the freckle-face groaned. “Don’t make it weird. Stop being weird.”

“Are you our assistant coach?” Kaneko pressed further. “Suga-sensei, is he our assistant coach?”

Suga crossed his arms and looked at Daichi pointedly, letting the question hang open-ended in the air. Daichi said nothing, struggling to even put thoughts together as he felt the temperature rising in his face.

“Get to work,” Suga said finally, dismissing the question as he pointed the boys into the gym. “Twenty serves apiece for bringing me over here on a Saturday. Then you’re Imasa’s problem.”

The students dutifully obeyed, pushing each other out of the way as they rushed in to set up the net. Several of them were whispering conspiratorially, Daichi was sure of it. He fixed Suga with a glare that demanded answers. Frustratingly, Suga just grinned and shrugged.

“So? How about it?”

“How about  _ what,  _ Koushi?”

Suga’s face sobered.

“I’m coaching for the boys volleyball club. And I’d rather do it with you.” He looked down at his feet for a moment, unable to meet Daichi’s eyes. “I’ve thought that from day 1. I wanted to ask you earlier, but it seemed weird to bother you with it. But now you’re here, and we’re  _ here, _ and...and I think we should give it a shot, Daichan.”

_ “I think we should give it a shot, Daichan.” Suga’s face was completely earnest, no trace of his usual playful dismissiveness. Daichi hesitated, taking the tablet from him to rewind the play one more time. It seemed basically impossible. _

_ “I dunno…” he frowned. “There’s so much we need to work on right now. We’re so far behind some of these other teams, is this really the time to try something this out of our league?”  _

_ “I think that’s exactly why it’s the perfect time,” his vice captain urged gently. They were sprawled out on the floor of Daichi’s bedroom, surrounded by half-scrawled pieces of graph paper and empty snack bags. It was late, but neither of them were particularly tired. Daichi glanced over at his half-packed duffel bag—he really needed to finish throwing his stuff together for camp, but these moments were so few and far between lately. Besides, he knew Suga was desperate to offer something—he’d seen the hand signals Suga taught Hinata and Kageyama, caught the edges of conversations Suga had with Nishinoya and Tanaka about ways to open up space for Asahi on the court. He even knew that Suga had helped Yachi take all the uniforms to the cleaners when Kiyoko-san was unavailable. To everyone else, it might have looked like the only reason why their team had gotten as far as they had this season was because their prodigy setter had taken Suga’s place, but Daichi saw the truth: the only reason their team functioned at all was because Suga never stopped working.  _

_ “If we don’t try something new now—something exciting, something different,” Suga continued, interrupting Daichi’s train of thought. “We’re just going to get lost in everything that isn’t working. But this play? I know we can pull it off. We can take this, and make it ours, and that little victory is going to turn into bigger victories.” He grinned, and for a moment that grin made Daichi feel like he really could do anything. “What do you say, Captain?” _

“Well? What do you say?”

Suga grinned, and it was hopeful and a little nervous and Daichi felt very young and very old all at once.

“I have to go,” he managed, after a moment. Suga’s face fell, and Daichi turned to walk away before he had to look at what he had done.

“What? Daichi, please, wait, talk to me about this—“

“I can’t do this, Sugawara,” he insisted. “I have a life to get back to, and a job, and I can’t just pick up volleyball coaching on a whim, I can’t just commit to something like that.”

“I’m not making you commit to anything, you can think it over as much as you need or—“

“I  _ don’t  _ need to! Because it’s not happening! I’ve never coached before in my life, and even if I had, I can’t just uproot my entire life to hang out with a bunch of teenagers every week.”

“You’re the one who said you didn’t want to wait five years to see me again. You said that.” Suga’s voice still sounded confused, but now there was something worse in it. Something hurt. Daichi still couldn’t look. 

“Yeah, well I meant we should stay in touch, Suga, not tie the knot and raise a bunch of high schoolers together,” he retorted bitterly. He wasn’t even sure where that anger had come from, and he regretted it the moment he said it, but he couldn’t stop his mouth from following up. “We’re not all out here trying to come back home and, and buy a house and decide on the next thirty years of our lives, okay? I wrapped up that chapter of my life, and I told you, I’m done. I can’t coach with you, so forget it.”

“What are you even talking about? I asked you to help teach club sports, not sign a lease. And don’t give me that can’t-do bullshit,” Suga snapped. “I know you, and I know you can do anything if you want it badly enough.”

“Then I guess I don’t want it,” he stated levelly, and walked off without looking back.

-*-*

Daichi was too upset to admit it, but he was thankful that Suga had been right when he promised the school wasn’t too far out of the way. He was able to navigate back toward Tanaka’s house with minimal effort, leaving plenty of room in his head to replay the incident over and over again as he continued to wind himself up in frustrated circles.  _ What are you even talking about? _ He didn’t actually know, and that was what made him angriest. He kicked the sidewalk with a huff and pushed open the garden gate.

“Heads up!”

Daichi looked up just in time to notice a volleyball spiraling wildly toward his chest. Reactively, he dropped his knees and braced his forearms. The ball struck with a dull thwack and spun off haphazardly, bouncing into the street well behind him.

“Nice receive, Captain,” a voice called. Daichi looked up, flushed with surprise and embarrassment, to see a familiar face across the little yard. It was Saeko, a grin on her face and two small toddlers on the lawn next to her

“Hey, Big Sis Tanaka, long time no see. You reeeeally don’t have to call me Captain anymore.”

Saeko laughed, crossing her arms across her chest and throwing her head back uproariously‍.  _ They really are related,  _ Daichi observed for the thousandth time.

“Once a crow, always a crow!” she declared. 

“Hey, Sawamura-san!” A tall blond man Daichi vaguely recognized and remembered as Tsukishima’s older brother greeted him from behind, carrying the ball from Daichi’s wayward bump in one arm and a little girl of about 5 or 6 years old in the other. “How’s home treating you?”

“Uh, I’ll get back to you on that one.”

“That bad, huh?” he—Akiteru, that was his name—smiled sympathetically. Daichi wasn’t sure he wanted sympathy right now. “You look like you’ve got a lot on your mind. That wasn’t one of your finer receives.”

“Yeah, it’s not the first one I’ve botched today, either,” he admitted somewhat bitterly. 

“You don’t say?” Akiteru gently placed his daughter down onto the lawn and handed her the ball. The girl, a little blonde who seemed to take  _ very  _ much after her mother, scampered off happily, eager to show Saeko her treasure. 

“I think I...may have gotten a chance ball earlier and left somebody hanging in a big way.” Daichi frowned, running his fingers through his hair as he felt his temper cool a bit.

“Oh,” Akiteru responded, looking mildly confused but attempting friendliness nonetheless. “Well, there’s...always going to be another...serve? I’m sorry, I don’t actually know if we’re still talking about volleyball or not.”

Daichi couldn’t help but laugh.

“Well...yes and no, actually.”

Akiteru smiled, catching the ball as Saeko managed a haphazard overhand pass from the toddler’s toss. He held it out to Daichi, an offering if he chose to accept it.

“Do you still play?”

Daichi sighed, reaching out a hesitant hand to take the ball. He turned it over between his palms, contemplating it, feeling how rough and unfamiliar it was as it spun against his skin.

“I meant to...does that count for anything? I really meant to. I always told myself that’s the one thing I’d keep up with my whole life, just for me. But as soon as I left town, it seemed like I never had the time. Or never made the time, maybe. Maybe Suga was right. Maybe I just didn’t really want to badly enough.”

“Where is Suga-san?” Saeko asked. “Noya said the two of you were out together.”

“That...would be the botched receive,” Daichi admitted, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. He sighed and handed the ball back to Akiteru. “I just came back to grab my bag and head to the station. I...think I need to cut my trip a little short.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! This chapter got a liiittle long, but I couldn’t bring myself to cut it off without at least letting the fight settle just a tiny bit. [Plus I just really wanted to get a moment of Saeko & Co hanging out in her brother’s yard on a Saturday. You go, Saeko.]


	9. Tough Calls

Suga didn’t know what he had expected. 

He stood there watching Daichi go long after he’d left, and all he could seem to think was that he was too used to seeing Daichi go, maybe he’d always be watching Daichi go, maybe the only thing his brain could possibly supply was new and creative game plans to get his own feelings hurt. His memory offered up a dozen identical images of standing restlessly on the sidelines while his captain went out onto the court, of digging his nails into his palm with a sunny smile as Daichi walked home with whatever girl was brave enough to make the ask that week, of sobbing messily into Asahi’s shoulder when, at 5 am, they finally split ways the morning after graduation.

It was his own fault and he knew it. As much as he wanted to hate Sawamura for breaking his heart again—and really, what  _ was  _ that nonsense with the realtor other than  _ completely unfair _ —he should know better than to get his hopes up by now. And yet it had all seemed so obvious and simple an hour ago, like every sign in his life was fortuitously aligning toward a decision that was as good as made. As if all the symmetry of past and present converged on something like a second chance. Instead, it seemed the only thing predetermined by destiny was that he was just stupid enough to walk right back into the same closed door. Something that felt a lot like anger rose up in his chest and pricked at his eyes, and he couldn’t tell in that moment who it was for—just that it hurt.

He consciously relaxed his hands and breathed deeply, squaring his shoulders as he closed his eyes and centered himself. No. He wasn’t going to cry over this. Daichi had made a decision. But his world wasn’t going to end with that decision. He had his own choices to make, and it was time to stop second-guessing them. He’d taken a job here, right? He’d stepped up to coach. He’d put an offer on a house. Who had he done all of those things for? The answer couldn’t be Sawamura Daichi. He had to choose himself now.

He walked into the gym and tossed his jacket down on the bench, stretching his arms out overhead as he surveyed the scene.

“Coach-sensei! Are you sticking around to watch?”

“Yep.”

“But Coach, what about your Saturday?”

“Cancelled.”

“Coach, was that Sawamura-san the same Sawamura-san who captained for Karasuno when they went to Nationals?”

“Yep.”

“Is he going to be our assistant coach?”

“Nope.”

Either the set of Suga’s face or his uncharacteristically clipped responses somehow finally cued the boys in to the fact that maybe they shouldn’t press any further. Imasa caught the ball he was currently receiving and looked at his coach inquisitively for guidance.

“Yes, Imasa-san?” Suga replied.

“Do...do you want to take over, Coach-sensei, or…?”

“What I want, Imasa-san,” Suga forced a bright smile to his face and placed his hands confidently on his hips. “Is a decisive Captain! What do  _ you  _ want?”

“Oh! Uh…” Imasa spun the ball in his hands thoughtfully, then looked up at Suga with a tentative confidence. “I want...to do 3-on-3s?”

“Great idea! Now why are you telling  _ me  _ that?”

“Right!” Imasa snapped to attention, tucking the ball under his arm and delivering direction with newfound vigor. “Okay, crows, huddle up! We’re gonna do a 3 on 3 game! Uhh, Benji, Sakurai, you’re with me. Iishi, Yonezawa, you’re with Kaneko-kun. Akiyama, get ready to sub in. There are 3 touches on each side, so everybody’s gonna touch the ball once, every single play! Remember, it’s all connected!”

“ _ Hai,  _ Captain-kun!”

“You got it, Imasa!”

_ It’s all connected,  _ Suga thought to himself with a bittersweet little smile.  _ Funny. _ He sighed and checked his watch. 1:15 PM. There was an awful lot of day left, but at least it couldn’t get much worse.

“Oh, Coach-sensei, before I forget,” Kaneko, the blonde vice captain who had recognized Daichi so handily, jogged over to the bench where Suga stood and rifled through the backpack he had brought, pulling out a folder stuffed with errant handwritten notes and sheets of information. “This is all of the club records.”

“Huh? Oh, thanks, Kaneko-san. Do you not have a team manager?” Suga took the folder and gingerly opened it, feeling a bit daunted already at the contents.

“Sensei, we barely have a  _ team. _ ”

Fair point.

“Right. Okay. Well I’ll start going through all of this while you help Imasa-san with the 3-on-3s then.”

Suga began flicking through the documents but felt the boy’s eyes lingering on him hesitantly.

“...Is there something else, Kaneko-san?” he asked.

“No! Nothing, Sensei,” he insisted quickly, and sprinted back to the court, already barking directions to his teammates before Suga could press further. “Zawa-kun, no funny business til we take the first set, got it? Iishi, keep that cannon under control. You’re gonna wipe that grin off Imasa’s face with a line shot and then you’re gonna do it six more times…”

The boy’s voice trailed off, mingling with the shouts of the others and the rhythmic thwacking of the ball and the squeak of shoes on the gym floor—basically white noise to Sugawara’s brain, and a welcome relief from the tumult of the day so far. He began to skim the contents of the folder, hoping for a distraction from the dull ache in his chest. Kaneko, to his credit, seemed to be very organized, and what had initially looked to be a jumble of papers soon revealed itself to be in excellent order, with relevant sections highlighted and paper-clipped where appropriate. Suga flicked through neat spreadsheets of contact information, medical release forms, a note indicating Benji’s allergies and another detailing that Sakurai had twisted their ankle three months ago. Neatly handwritten on the back pocket of the folder was a list of everyone’s birthdays. 

From there, however, it got significantly more overwhelming. For example, there was a list of prices from where someone—presumably Kaneko or Imasa—had collected quotes on bus rental costs to and from the Sendai City gymnasium. There was also a bank statement indicating the total savings of the Karasuno Boys Volleyball Club, and the gulf between the two slips of paper was, in a word, nauseating. A sticky note with multiple underscores indicated that the uniforms needed to be ordered for the year, and that the first-years needed track jackets. Several slips of playbook paper toward the back explored various possible rotations, and it occurred to Suga as well that he would at some point have to set a starting roster. Recruitment was another thing they ought to consider. He wasn’t sure if anyone had thought to set up practice games for the team, and supposed that was on his to-do list now as well. Whatever false confidence and righteous motivation he had managed to summon after Daichi stormed off, he felt the last of it slip completely through his fingers. He was still staring at the folder as the boys finished cooldown stretches and packed up the court.

He sort of noticed them leaving, was half aware of Iishi placing his keys on the bench and Imasa waving goodbye. He was vaguely cognizant of the light moving across the floor with the passage of the day as it streamed through the window and knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he needed to stand up and go somewhere that wasn’t here. He wasn’t particularly keen on the idea of running into Daichi at the house—if he had even gone back at all, though Suga suspected he eventually would have to—but he also couldn’t just stay at the gymnasium all day. Suddenly the town felt suffocatingly small. Was it possible to run from anything in Karasuno? Maybe not. Maybe getting out was the only real decision a person could live with. The thought made him bitter.

He snapped the folder shut with a sigh and stood up, feeling the creaking in his knees as he stretched them out. He noticed a shadow falling across the light through the open doorway and turned in surprise to find a figure standing there.

“Hey, kid, practice is over. I’m gonna have to ask you to go home.” 

A wry smile tugged at the edge of Suga’s lips.

“I tried. Somehow, I just ended up here.”

More than anyone else he had run into so far, the years had shown their hand on Ukai. His hair was grown out longer now, half of it pulled back behind his headband into a loose bun at the nape of his neck, and only the ends of it were that familiar blond. Suga wondered when he had stopped dyeing it. When he stopped coaching? Or later than that? Why? The former coach’s face was instantly recognizable—still undeniably handsome, in his sort of detached way, but tired with what Suga could only assume was more than just a single night of bad sleep. He held a cigarette between his fingers, idly flicking the ashes outside into the courtyard as he considered Suga’s response with a kindred smile.

“Yeah, I probably coulda warned you about that.”

“Doubt it would have helped.”

“Yeah.” Ukai took another thoughtful drag. “Probably not.”

“But hey,” Suga laughed humorlessly, “If you have literally any other words of wisdom lying around, I will gladly take them off your hands, because…” he ran out of words, gesturing vaguely at the gym and the folder in his hands before the tears he’d been holding back for several hours already welled up without warning and he sat down hard on the bench, utterly overwhelmed. He clenched his teeth, tasting salt and bitterness as hot tears slid slowly down his cheeks. The soft squeak of shoes and a firm hand on his shoulder tethered him to the moment as his poor, overtired brain struggled to stay present. Ukai stood patiently, saying nothing but giving Suga the time he needed to release some of the pressure building up behind his eyes. “It’s so much,” he managed finally. “All of it, it’s so much. How...how did you do all of this?”

“I didn’t,” Ukai answered with a sigh. “I never had to. Not alone, anyway.”

He sat down next to Suga, contemplating his hands for a moment as he looked out at the empty gym—though Suga suspected it wasn’t any emptier for Ukai than it was for himself. More than likely it was full of ghosts.

“Coaching this team was maybe the hardest thing I ever did,” Ukai finally mused. “But that’s not really saying much when you’ve never done anything hard. You know, all the calls, all the organizing, all the legwork, that was Sensei from beginning to end. By the time I finally got my shit together he was practically running this thing. And all the record keeping, the stats, I mean, Shimizu was a godsend. Hell, I didn’t even have to make any of the difficult decisions, not really.” He glanced over at Suga, regarding the younger man thoughtfully. “Every time I thought I was gonna have to, you beat me to it. You know I think I owe you an apology, Sugawara-san. I did you pretty dirty as far as coaches go.”

“What?” Suga’s head snapped up in disbelief. “You were an amazing coach. You’re the reason that we—“

“I’m not talking about the team,” Ukai waved a hand dismissively. “I’m talking about you.”

“Why, because you let Kageyama play instead? Because you didn’t sub me in at the end? That was the right decision to make. It’s what needed to happen.”

“Maybe so. But it never should have been your call to make.” He brought the cigarette to his lips again. Suga resisted the teachery impulse to scold him for bringing it inside, hesitant to interrupt whatever the man may have been trying to get at. “Even if it was always going to end up the same way—even if it  _ was  _ the right decision—you should have been allowed to resent me for that.”

“I was never going to—“

“But you should have, alright? Yes, he was the more aggressive setter, yes, it’s what Hinata needed, that’s not the point.” Ukai punctuated each point with an irritated gesture, though whether he was annoyed with the conversation or himself was impossible to say. He sighed, briefly tenting his fingertips to his forehead. “The point is, I was the adult, and that responsibility fell to me. The fact that you got there before me every time speaks volumes about the kind of person you are, but...well, I worry it did you a disservice in the long run. Benching yourself for some greater good, taking yourself out of the equation before people can do it to you—that’s no way to live, kid. Ask me how I know.”

Suga was silent.

“Anyway,” Ukai continued, “I can’t tell you any of this gets easier. But you were a damn good coach at 17. And I’m guessing you’re only gonna get better. Does that help?”

The wall felt blessedly cool and uncomplicated as Suga leaned back against it, too tired to push back against the feelings and memories that now washed over him. It wasn’t the first time he had made the connection between his high school experience and what he assumed coaching would be. He thought about the days before Ukai showed up, when he and Daichi ran every practice, wrote every strategy, gave every pep talk. That was why—well, part of why—he’d felt so strongly about getting him back to the court. They’d been through this before. He thought about the post-practice talks, about watching pro plays over homework and snacks. He thought about hand signals and playbooks and game tapes and too many nights staying up late at tournaments he knew he wouldn’t have to be ready to play in anyway just so that he might be able to find one more angle someone else could use to keep them going just a bit longer. And then he sat up a little straighter as he realized something. He and Daichi had more or less coached the team, yes, and he’d been remembering that as what had kept the club alive. But that wasn’t what made the team great. 

The  _ team _ made the team great. 

“I wasn’t taking myself out of the equation,” he mused out loud.

“Huh?”

Suga glanced back over at Ukai, grinning as the thoughts whirling through his mind fell toward their inevitable conclusion.

“I was putting other people  _ in. _ ”

A glimmer of something like understanding alit in Ukai’s eyes and he regarded Suga with curious respect.

“You mean…”

“I’ve been trying to score points for  _ me _ ,” Suga explained, his tongue struggling to keep up with his mind as he stood and collected his things. “But I’m not the only one who can score points for the  _ team _ . A victory is a victory, right? So I should be using all the people I can, in all the ways I can.”

“Well now you’re definitely speaking my language, kid, but I still don’t have any idea what the hell you‘re speaking it about.”

“You’ll see. I promise.”

“You know what, Sugawara-san?” Ukai stood as well, stretching his arms briefly before leaning to flick his dying cigarette out into the open courtyard. He brushed his hands off and regarded Suga with a sort of reluctant pride. “After all this time, I think I still underestimated you.”

“Oh, you did,” Suga laughed, then turned a challenging grin on his former coach. “But you can make it up to me by getting me the number for Nekoma’s coach. I think these kids need a practice game.”

“Ugh. Say no more. I know better than to stand in the way of a high school teacher on a mission.” Ukai pulled out his phone and tapped out a few characters before sliding it back into his pocket. “I texted Naoi. He’ll be getting in touch. I’m sure he probably still owes me for something. Or I owe him. One of the two.”

“Thanks, Coach. I really appreciate it.”

“The least I can do. Just promise me you’re not gonna drag me back into this whole mess again.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.” A thought, long overdue, suddenly occurred. “Wait, why are you here in the first place, Ukai-san?”

Ukai’s fingers twitched as he looked out the doorway at nothing in particular. Suga wondered if he was resisting the urge to light up another cigarette.

“Hm. I guess it’s because I...made a promise to myself, years ago.”

“A...promise?”

“Yeah. That if a little man in big glasses ever took a chance on me again, I wouldn’t make him ask more than once.”

“Sensei called you.” Shock wasn’t the right word for what Suga was feeling. Envy, maybe. Admiration. Wonderment. He actually did it.

“He did.”

“And here you are.”

Ukai snorted derisively, but Suga thought maybe there was something more vulnerable behind it.

“Here I am. Said he had something to tell me and wanted to do it here.” His fingers twitched again and he crossed his arms to lean against the doorframe. “Don’t know why we couldn’t just go to a bar or a park or something. Not everything has to be a goddamn metaphor.”

But Suga saw the blush that dusted the other man’s cheeks. He smiled and tossed his keyring to Ukai.

“I’ll leave you to it. Lock up when you’re done.”

He pulled on his messenger bag and left with a wave before Ukai could protest. The sun had moved nearly all the way across the sky while he’d been inside, and the glow of the sunset on his face as Suga started home was something of a comfort. He wasn’t quite as selfless as everyone maybe wanted to think he was: he was still going to hope, still going to want what he wanted, and he harbored no delusions that he would be able to say no if chance offered it to him. But it wasn’t a person who had gotten him through the best years of his life. 

It was a team.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ukai x Takeda forever, regret to inform you all this is an UkaTake fic now


	10. Approach Distance

Daichi was trying hard not to think about why going home felt so much like leaving.

It was easier to believe it was just a bad mood, a guilty conscience—obviously he didn’t feel  _ good _ about hurting Suga’s feelings, and getting chewed out by Tanaka on the ride to the train station wasn’t exactly the highlight of his visit. But if he was being honest with himself—and again, he was trying very hard not to be—it wasn’t guilt or frustration that was hitting him hardest as he navigated through the train station, settled into an open window seat, and popped his headphones in. It was something else entirely.

He sighed and swiped his phone to life as he waited for the train to pull away. None of the notifications on his home screen did anything to lift his spirits. He ignored the multiple texts and one missed call from Tanaka, no doubt intended to further berate him for what he apparently perceived as “running out on a bro” and “ditching without a good enough reason.” Not that he was necessarily wrong, per se, but entertaining the conversation would have meant explaining what happened, and Daichi didn’t feel like doing that. Maybe it proved Tanaka’s point. It didn’t matter, either way—it was just easier to let the guy think he’d picked a nonsense fight with Suga and stormed out of town rather than try to find words to explain what he was really upset about when he had the unsettling feeling he didn’t know himself. There was also a text from Noya, a simple  _ “bro what happened”  _ that he similarly ignored with a detached swipe, and a reminder notification telling him his train—the train he had originally intended to take, rather—left in three hours. He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or bothered that there were no messages from Koushi. He didn’t want to figure it out, either. For now, he just wanted to think about something else—or, preferably, nothing at all. He opened his music library and sighed as he scrolled through the options at hand.

He was still scrolling aimlessly as the train doors closed and the world jolted into movement around him. Eventually he settled for just hitting the “SHUFFLE ALL” button and letting his gaze fall out the window. He wasn’t really listening, anyway, more or less just letting his thoughts wander as the countryside rolled away toward Tokyo.

_ Arriving in Tokyo for the first time had felt terrifying. Nerve-wracking. Breathtaking. It was a place he had come, unthinkingly, to equate with greatness. For years he’d been chasing the dream of Tokyo, knowing the only chance he had of seeing it slipped further and further from his fingers with every botched pass, every blocked spike, every broken guard. But for the past few months it had been growing closer and closer again in the horizon of his mind, til he found himself looking at it—actually looking at it!—from the other side of a bus window. He felt like his eyes couldn’t possibly go wide enough to take it all in.  _

_ Gently, he roused Suga from sleep on his shoulder, smiling down at the other boy as he pointed out the window. _

_ Suga looked up at him with bleary, affectionate eyes, blinking slowly before stretching his arms up into a yawn and peering out the window with a sharp gasp. _

_ “Oh, wow. Everything is so big.” _

_ “Can you believe we’re almost there? I mean really there?” Daichi mused. _

_ “Well it’s about time, we’ve been on this bus for hours,” Suga yawned again. _

_ “No, sleeping beauty, I’m talking about the past three years. I didn’t think we’d ever see it.” _

_ Suga looked at him for a moment, blinking more sleep from his eyes as he cocked his head and grinned simply. _

_ “I did!” _

_ Daichi punched him gently in the shoulder. _

_ “You  _ would  _ say that.” _

_ “Yes, because I cannot and would not ever tell a lie—Asahi, are you crying?!” _

_ The ace in the seat in front of them shook his head vigorously, but the quivering in his shoulders told a different story. _

_ “N-no! I’m not c-crying, I’m just—“ _

_ “You are! You softie! Asahi-kuuuun, you’re emotional about being here with your best friends—“ _

_ Daichi chuckled to himself as Suga leaned onto the seat in front of them to pester the other third year. His heart swelled with something bigger than pride as he let his gaze fall back out the window. They were here. They had arrived. And it felt right. _

_ Leaving Tokyo, on the other hand, was the worst feeling in the world. _

_ The bus was silent. There were no playful jabs, no raucous cheers, no tunelessly singing along to somebody’s playlist. There was just the dead, dull quiet of total exhaustion and disappointment. Daichi’s bruises felt hot and sore on his body, badges of shame from balls he should have fought just a little harder to keep alive. He knew the others felt the same—bandaged, beaten, bitter—and he felt the sting of tears every time he thought about opening his mouth to say something. Even Sugawara was quiet next to him. What was there to be said? They were done. Everything ended here. There was nothing left at the end of this bus ride—nothing left in Karasuno, after this. They’d bought all the time they could, and now it was over. _

The sudden influx of people and the familiar noise of Tokyo Station jostled Daichi into the moment. He slung his bag over one shoulder and maneuvered his way through the doors, slipping into the crowd and across the platform in the midst of a crowd.

When he had decided, just before graduation, that he planned to make the next chapter of his life in Tokyo, he told himself he was chasing a challenge. Tokyo was the place he had felt closest to greatness, true greatness. It had been the single biggest goal and gauntlet of his life, and it seemed if he was going to get back to that greatness—to rematch his own potential—it had to be there. And if he ever left Tokyo again, he swore to himself, he would do it with no regrets.

He dug his keys out of the pocket of his duffel bag, smiling bitterly to himself. No regrets, huh? It was a nice thought. He’d like to meet that version of himself again someday, if he still existed at all. He was at least pretty sure  _ that _ Daichi didn’t live in this apartment. He shouldered open the door and tossed his bag down as he slipped off his shoes, sighing deeply before coming inside and throwing himself onto the futon. It was quiet here except for the sounds of traffic outside. Daichi let his gaze fall around the room, letting his eyes wander so his thoughts wouldn’t. There was his work computer. His briefcase. The handful of cardboard boxes he had never quite gotten around to unpacking. At this point it seemed silly to bother. He hadn’t decided if he would keep the lease or look for a new place after this. But it didn’t really matter all that much—he was the only one that saw the inside of it, and he didn’t spend much time here. Once or twice, when he first moved in, he’d had a girl over, or maybe a friend from work, but it never seemed to go anywhere, and he was never too disappointed when that turned out to be the case. 

His thoughts jumped to a different apartment, hours away in what felt like another lifetime. He thought of Suga standing in front of a window with the sunlight streaming in and glinting off his silver hair as his face creased in deep contemplation. He thought of the look in Suga’s eyes when he decided on the house, and he wondered what it felt like to be so certain of something. He thought of—

— _ he thought of walking down a quiet street with his arm around the other man, sharing a quiet smile and a laugh that came from somewhere deep and warm and golden, of having nowhere to be on a Saturday except next to— _

He shook his head to clear his thoughts, and realized with an urgency he couldn’t place that he needed to be somewhere else right now, anywhere except alone by himself in this apartment. Grabbing his shoes and wallet again, he slipped out the door and almost immediately into a crowd. There was something comforting, he had come to find, about being a nobody in a big city. Nothing had prepared him for that—in his little corner of Miyagi, everyone was someone’s friend, someone’s senpai, someone’s cousin, someone’s teammate. But not here. Here he wasn’t anyone. Nobody’s  _ Sawamura-san,  _ nobody’s  _ Captain _ , certainly nobody’s  _ Daichan— _

Bitter frustration rose up in Daichi’s throat and he found himself scowling in spite of himself. It was like there was something pressing at the back of his mind, some realization he either couldn’t or wouldn’t fully bring into focus. Had he forgotten something in Karasuno? He didn’t think so. He had his keys, his phone, his wallet...he must just be tired. He’d worked pretty hard off the clock last week to free up his weekend for the trip, and it had been a lot of time on the train back and forth. Not to mention it wasn’t exactly a restful night at the Tanaka household. It was still only late afternoon though, far too early to call it a night just yet. Maybe he could just grab a coffee and walk around for a bit. 

Thankfully, this was Tokyo. You could throw a rock with your eyes closed and hit three coffee shops before it touched the ground. He glanced up and opted for the first one he laid eyes on. Pushing the door open with his hands still shoved deep in his pockets, he fell into the back of the line. It was fairly quiet in here, probably caught halfway between the busy midday of the working crowd and the evening vibrancy of the weekend. He half-smiled to himself thinking about the coffee shop he had visited that morning with Suga, back in Karasuno, and wondered if the concept of “busy” was even recognizable there. Probably not, if he remembered anything about the town.

It took him a moment to figure out whether he was still reminiscing or not when he glimpsed a profile view of the customer in front of him, a tall bespectacled blonde man in a casual but tasteful blazer muttering into a bluetooth headset under his breath as he skimmed the loose leaf teas with a bored expression. Daichi blinked.

“Tsukki?”

The blonde paused for a second, flicked his gaze over to Daichi with a vaguely curious expression, and then offered a half-smile along with a gesture which read  _ just a moment. _

“I’ll call you back. Mhm. You too.” He clicked a button on the earpiece and then took the time to properly regard Daichi. “Well. Small world, Captain.”

“You really,  _ really  _ don’t need to call me Captain.”

“And you  _ really _ don’t need to call me Tsukki,” he responded dryly. “But I thought maybe we were indulging nostalgia here, Captain.”

“I’ve had enough nostalgia for one day, I think,” Daichi chuckled wearily. “I, ah. Just got in from Sendai station.”

“Mm, I heard. I suppose congratulations are in order.”

_ What a weird thing to say _ , Daichi thought. He chalked it up to Tsukishima’s impenetrable sarcasm and shrugged noncommittally.

“Uh. I guess.”

What are you having, I’ll treat.” Tsukki signaled to the barista to ring both purchases up together.

“Uh, just a black coffee, thanks.” Daichi frowned as his brain continued processing the overflow of information. So Tsukki was serious? Why? And how had he known in the first place about the trip? “Wait, what do you mean you hea—“

“Green tea. Gen mai cha. Extra sleeve, thank you.” Tsukki flicked his credit card out toward the barista with a snap of the wrist before adding, as an afterthought, “and two of the red bean buns. Unless you’d prefer something else…?”

“Uh, no, that’s fine. Thanks. Congratulations om what though, I don’t—“

“Here you are, sir,” the barista offered, handing the black coffee and the credit card back to Tsukishima, who passed off the coffee as he slipped around the service corner to wait for his tea. Daichi followed, thanking the cashier and trying not to spill coffee on himself as he got progressively more flustered, his chest thumping with alarm and confusion.

“Okay, thank you again, but seriously, Tsukki—what do you mean  _ you heard _ ? Who told you I was back in Karasuno?”

Tsukki simply looked at him with muted surprise, the way you might look at anyone who just asked an exceedingly obvious and thoroughly uninteresting question.

“I spoke to my brother this morning.”

“Oh.” Daichi literally felt his blood pressure subside. He relaxed slightly, buoyed by the fact that it wasn’t Tanaka or Noya or worse, Suga, who might have spread word around of their falling out. Just a passing mention from Akiteru-san. He sipped at his coffee awkwardly.

“He mentioned you were in town apartment-shopping with Sugawara-san.”

Daichi choked on his coffee. Tsukki, unfazed, handed him a napkin and kept talking.

“Admittedly, unexpected. I would have imagined that ship had sailed, but good for you. I wonder if Yamaguchi will remember I owe him 2,000 yen.”

It was in that moment, with his face flaming and hot coffee searing his skin, that Daichi remembered why people didn’t tend to like Tsukki very much. 

“Tsukki, I wasn’t—Suga and I are not moving in together. He was apartment shopping, and I was with him, but we weren’t—it’s complicated. I don’t know why you would think—wait, what were you betting on?”

“Really? Mm. Well, don’t beat yourself up about it, complicated can be fun.”

Complicated did not feel very fun to Daichi in that moment. There were more complicated feelings churning up in his stomach than he really knew what to do with. Frustration, confusion, surprise—obviously—but something else that felt like...disappointment? Resentment? ...Homesickness?

“Tsukishima-kun, will you please just tell me what the hell you are talking about?” He finally managed to slot the lid onto his coffee with an exasperated  _ snap.  _ Tsukishima regarded him for a second, reading his face with what Daichi remembered was characteristic uncomfortable keenness before apparently coming to an assessment of the situation.

“Oh captain, my captain,” Tsukki tsked softly. He handed Daichi one of the pastries with a knowing little smirk. “You may want to sit down for this next part.”

Daichi knew he would regret it even before it happened, but he seemed powerless to stop himself from joining Tsukishima at one of the high top tables pressed up against the window. As much as he was dreading the direction of this conversation, that weird curious consternation in the pit of his stomach drew him further into it like a magnet. He felt again like he was dangerously close to some piece of knowledge that both scared and excited him, and he felt, for some reason, like Tsukki knew exactly what it was. He slid into the chair and picked at the pastry with nervous fingers as the blonde across from him took all the time in the world sipping at his tea and gazing out the window. Finally, he tapped the glass, drawing Daichi’s attention.

“Captain, see that woman there? In the green dress?”

“Uh. Yes?”

“Do you think she’s attractive?”

Daichi frowned. He felt like he was walking into a trap somehow.

“I don’t think I should—“

“Relax, Daichi-san, I’m not trying to get you in trouble. Just answer the question.”

“I—yes, she’s very pretty.”

“What about her?” Tsukki pressed, fixing him again with those calculating eyes.

“She...she’s dressed very well. She has an athletic figure and long legs. Her hair is nice. I don’t know what you want me to—“

“That’s fine, that’s fine. How about me?”

“What?” Daichi’s brain flatlined again.

“Do you think _ I’m _ attractive?”

“I—I’m not—“

“Yes or no, Captain, no hard feelings either way.”

Daichi paused for a second. He wasn’t interested in men, so he had never really considered it before, but Tsukishima  _ was  _ attractive. Now that the question was on the floor, it wasn’t a particularly hard one.

“Yes,” he answered definitively.

“Well thank you, Daichi-senpai,” Tsukki gasped coyly. “What about me is attractive?”

“Uh, you have like...nice features? Your face is pretty. You’re always very meticulous about the way you present yourself. You’re sort of...elegant, I guess.”

“A man of taste! I misjudged you.”

Daichi grinned in spite of himself and rolled his eyes. 

“Thanks, Tsukki, glad I surpassed expectations. Now where is this going?”

“ _ Patience,  _ Captain. You’ll get there, I promise you. So how about…” Tsukki waved his hand as if searching for a random example. “Sugawara-san?”

“Is he attractive, you mean?”

“Mm.” 

“Well, yeah,” Daichi shrugged. That was obvious to anybody. Suga was probably one of the most attractive people he’d ever met. That was true in high school and it was still true now.

“What about him?” Tsukishima leaned forward over the table just slightly, cupping his tea between his hands.

“Well he’s...he just is. I mean like he’s got that beautiful hair and those big, bright eyes and his smile—you know, the way he smiles when you do some little thing for him just because you know he’d like it. And the way he always knows just how to reach somebody else when they really need it. Like he’s...just always got this light in him, you know? When he’s excited about something or gets all fired up because there’s a challenge in his way. And even when he’s being completely, totally irritating, you can’t help but think that...oh,” he noticed the satisfied gleam in Tsukki’s eyes and stuttered to a stop as a decade of repressed emotions slammed into him all at once like a volleyball to the chest. “O-oh my god.” 

He caught his head in his hands and stared down at the table, feeling like he was going to vomit. The gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach and the nagging at the back of his mind both suddenly vanished, replaced by the intense vertigo of realization. 

“Oh my  _ god. _ I’m in love with Sugawara.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TSUKKI TSUKKI TSUKKI TSUKKI
> 
> Anyway hi! Thank you all so much for your patience, and for the deeply kind comments/feedback so far, especially on the last chapter. I’m really excited to finally get to start weaving more of the characters in and letting the “burn” part of the slow burn take over. Many thanks again for reading!


	11. Team Meeting pt. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Sorry it’s been a minute! How about that Haikyuu finale huh? Thanks for reading!

“Oh my  _ god.  _ I’m in love with Sugawara.”

“Oh good, you got there,” Tsukki commented lightly, sipping his tea again before making a mildly disgusted face. “Hm. Oversteeped.”

“How terrible, that must be  _ so inconvenient for you _ ,” Daichi mumbled bitterly.

“In time, Captain, this will cease to feel like the end of the world, and you will realize I have done nothing today except buy you coffee and help you down a road to happiness.” Tsukishima’s blithe indifference felt like insult on top of injury.

“What do  _ you  _ know about it,” Daichi sulked, feeling very flustered and very embarrassed and not at all like a grown man in charge of the situation. He felt, in fact, very much like a high school boy, one who would give anything to bury this sudden forbidden knowledge and put this moment off for another decade.

“Sawamura-san,” Tsukki put down his tea and slid his glasses up on his nose, fixing Daichi with an impassive glare. “I share a chic 1-bedroom Tokyo City apartment with two other young, beautiful men in the prime of their lives. As I might tell my 8 am remedial algebra class—you do the math.”

All of the blood in Daichi’s body seemed to rush to his face at once. He of course remembered finding out at some point that Tsukki lived in Tokyo and who his roommates were—probably through conversation with Kuroo, they still chatted very occasionally and had met for drinks once or twice—but he had not quite put two and two together. Or in this case, one and one and one. He could practically envision Kuroo’s delighted face and raucous laughter ringing in his ears as he figured it out. He did not forgive his brain for envisioning anything else involved with that particular arrangement, and shook his head to dismiss it as quickly as possible.

“In any case,” Tsukki continued unfazed, generously ignoring Daichi’s uncomfortable realization. “I really don’t see the problem here. You don’t occupy some particularly public position to my knowledge; there’s no scandal in it. You know that he’s gay, and everyone else knows that he’s interested. And you were just visiting with Sugawara-san this morning, so you’re clearly still in touch. Really, you’re lucky, it’s an uncomplicated scenario, and I know you both to be perfectly rational people. It’s not like there was some petty, dramatic falling out and now you don’t know where you stand with each other.”

Daichi stared helplessly.

Tsukki frowned.

“Captain.”

Daichi’s shoulders twitched upward in a noncommittal shrug.

“I said,  _ it’s not like there was some petty, dramatic falling out…” _

“Okay,” Daichi relented. “So there may have been a tiny—“

“Stop. Stop talking.” Tsukki held up a hand to halt him, sighing with terse frustration before pulling out his cell phone with the other hand. “Just...don’t.”

“No, Tsukishima-kun, wait, hear me out—“

“No,” Tsukishima huffed. “You hear  _ me  _ out. Office hours are over.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’m calling Kuroo, and I am going somewhere I can get a very stiff drink, so you can either join us and talk to him about all of this or you can get on the phone with some other friend you trust and sort your shit out before you meet us there, but that is the extent of my goodwill and charity for today. Take it or leave it”

-*-*

Daichi still wasn’t entirely sure why he had taken it. And by ‘it,’ he specifically meant a cab ride in stony silence with Tsukishima to a bar fifteen minutes away with dim lights and an almost uncomfortably quiet atmosphere. He tore at the label on a beer he wasn’t really drinking while Tsukki scrolled apathetically on his phone.

“Well, well, well!” Kuroo’s cheshire cat grin was distinctly audible somehow even before Daichi could turn around to see it plastered across the other man’s smug, angular face. “If it isn’t Miyagi’s finest.”

“It isn’t,” Daichi responded dryly.

“I was talking about Kei-chan,” Kuroo retorted smugly, pecking Tsukki on the cheek before sliding into the booth next to him and loosely draping an arm across the blonde’s shoulders. Daichi felt a sharp stabbing in his chest as he recalled the feeling of Suga’s shoulders beneath his own arm just that morning, the other man grinning up at him with a look that made him feel like he was finally somewhere he wanted to be, and mentally cursed himself—not for the last time—for taking some 400 kilometers and a literal intervention to realize what should have been obvious when it was right in front of him. Though maybe that was for the best, he thought, given how well he was handling the revelation without the added pressure of an extremely beautiful and entirely-too-perceptive schoolteacher hanging on his every word.

“Where’s Bokuto-san?” Daichi asked, trying to keep himself from spending too long in his own thoughts.

“At home,” Kuroo replied. “Sexy baking.”

“What’s...what’s sexy baking?” 

“It’s basically just baking, but he doesn’t wear a shirt.”

“That sounds…” Daichi was at a loss for words.

“Stupid?” Tsukki offered, stirring his drink uninterestedly.

“Hot?” Kuroo smirked.

“Sweaty,” Daichi finally compromised. Kuroo and Tsukki both nodded in agreement.

“More or less. In any case, I would have come by myself either way,” Kuroo continued, leaning forward on his elbows. “I was told you might need a more productive sounding board than what our  _ other  _ other half might make possible.”

Daichi was almost taken aback. Despite Kuroo’s longtime habit of—and singular talent for—provoking him, he really did respect the man’s levelheadedness and practical ability for assessment. He was a keen observer, a good listener, and an honest friend, and that he would maybe be someone to help work through these terrifying feelings rather than poke fun at him was a surprisingly hopeful turn of events. It was also very short-lived.

“So are the stories true?” Kuroo continued, interrupting his train of thought. “Is the great Sawamura-san suffering from…” he faked a scandalized gasp before tapping Daichi teasingly on the nose, then purring, “boy problems?”

“Don’t infantilize me,” Daichi huffed, but even under the circumstances he couldn’t suppress a half-smile and a smartass remark. “They’re man problems.”

Kuroo cackled, then leaned back lazily into his seat, gesturing to a waiter with the practiced ease of a regular before sighing and shaking his head.

“Daichi, you know I have nothing but respect for you.”

“Do I know that?” 

“So with all of that due respect…” he continued on unfazed. “What the hell happened, man?”

Daichi frowned and drummed his fingertips on the table, ignoring the untouched beer on his coaster.

“I don’t know how much Tsukishima-kun told you already…”

“I believe the exact words in his text message were ‘Daichi just realized he’s gay for Sugawara and he already messed it up,’ which—“

“I didn’t say ‘ _ messed _ ,’” Tsukki corrected.

“—which was succinct, but unhelpful.”

“Yeah, succinct but unhelpful is about how I would describe Tsukki, too,” Daichi remarked coolly. 

Tsukishima stopped tapping passively on his phone and glanced up at Daichi, unimpressed.

“I got you this far, didn’t I?”

“Alright listen, Sawamura, trust me—nobody would be more delighted than I to watch Kei-chan get all riled up. Truly. But instead of doing that,” Kuroo paused to accept one beer from the waiter and push another toward Daichi. “Why don’t you humor me and take it from the top?”

“There’s...not much to tell,” Daichi sighed. He took the first beer he’d ordered, nearly room temperature by now and still barely touched, and toyed with it, rolling the bottle between his palms as he struggled to mine his thoughts for a version of the story that made sense. “A couple weeks ago I got a text from Suga. Then I gave him a call back about a week later. A few days after that, I heard from Tanaka and Noya, who invited me to come down and crash with them for a weekend to catch up while Suga was still living with them. I said yeah, I went down, we caught up, and it was great until it wasn’t. Now I’m here.”

The booth was silent for a moment before Kuroo let out a long, low whistle.

“Hm. This is gonna take a bit longer than I thought.”

“Well what do you expect, man?” Exasperation got the better of Daichi as he threw up his hands. “It took me at least eight years to figure out this much, didn’t it? I’m not exactly a genius at feelings, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“Ah, but it  _ didn’t  _ take eight years for you to figure it out,” Kuroo corrected. “It actually only took you a few minutes—once you were ready to have the conversation. So converse with me, Daichi-san.”

Tsukki smiled faintly over the rim of his glass—a soft, private, uncharacteristically fond sort of smile that Daichi felt he wasn’t supposed to see—before leaning over to murmur something to Kuroo. Kuroo nodded slightly and stood to allow Tsukki to exit the booth. 

“Hurry back,” Kuroo teased as the blonde excused himself and walked off in the direction of the bar. He turned back to Daichi with a grin. “That’s your cue to say all the most embarrassing stuff so you don’t have to watch him make faces.”

“Awesome,” Daichi rolled his eyes, finally leaning back and taking a drink. 

“Now seriously, man. I’m not gonna bully it out of you. If you want, we can let this whole thing slide and tell Kei we talked it out while he was gone. But only if that’s what you  _ really _ want. And I don’t think it is.”

“It’s not,” Daichi admitted. “I just feel so...unequipped to talk about this.” 

“Well, bad news, buddy—you’re the only one who can.” Kuroo paused to take a swig of his own beer, then shrugged. “But that’s what you crows do, right? The impossible, by any means necessary?”

“That was a long time ago. I’m not exactly much of a crow anymore.”

“Even the way you tell it, seems like there are some crows who worked very hard to get you in their nest last night that might disagree with that.”

“Last night was also a long time ago,” Daichi laughed ruefully, running his fingers through his close-cropped hair. 

“You know, funny thing about friends, Sawamura—you don’t get to choose when they give up on you. Even when you’re dead set on giving up on yourself.”

Something buzzed at the back of Daichi’s mind. A memory he hadn’t revisited in years.

_ “Guys?” he felt Suga and Asahi turn their gaze to him immediately, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to meet it. His decision loomed large in his mind, but something—something he had pushed deep, deep down—wrestled back against it. He muscled it aside and continued. “I think it’s best for us to leave the club, to be honest.” _

_ Sunlight streamed in through the window all around them, the utter pleasantness of the day outside so distinctly at odds with the way every single one of them was feeling. And he knew it, of course. He must have known long before he said it. It was his job to know, but it didn’t change what he had to do, what had to be said— _

_ “Huh?” Asahi managed, with a sound halfway between confusion and betrayal. Suga was completely quiet. Daichi didn’t know which was worse. _

_ “When they moved the dates up so the third years could still participate,” he explained, his voice much more sure and noble than he felt, “I swore to myself that I’d stick around and make it to spring tournament with the rest of the team. But watching our underclassmen and how they play...I’ve started to think that it might be better if we stepped down early and left the team to them.” _

_ Suga was still silent, but Daichi could swear, even without looking, that those big brown eyes were fixed on him. He didn’t trust himself to be capable of something that felt too much like lying if he stopped resisting the urge to meet them, so he doubled down and spoke even more firmly and quickly. _

_ “All of them have such incredible promise. If we let them put together a new starting lineup and give them as much time as possible to work together, that would be better for the team as a whole—“ _

_ “Daichi.” _

_ The sound of his name stopped him utterly in his tracks and he instinctively turned to meet Suga’s gaze before he could stop himself. A shiver that felt more like excitement than nerves ran down his spine at the look on his best friend’s face. Anyone who knew Sugawara just a little less well than he did—and he was proud to believe that was just about everybody, except maybe Asahi—would assume that Suga was the easygoing, amicable model of passivity. But there was a side of him, a rarely seen side, capable of such raw determination and will that it almost made Daichi a little awestruck. That was the Suga that he was looking at now. _

_ “Is that really what you want?” Suga demanded. _

_ Daichi opened his mouth to defend his position, but came up empty. He got the feeling they both knew the answer, but still he felt obligated to resist it. _

_ “Yes, you are the captain,” the setter continued, stealing every weak argument out of his mouth before it had the chance to form, “and that’s a position that comes with a lot of responsibility. But I doubt you need to shove all of your personal wants to the side for the sake of the team.” _

_ Was that what he was doing? He had told himself this decision was for everyone—for the benefit of the underclassmen who had so far still to go and so much raw ability to get them there, for the sake of his future and the responsibility he owed to his studies, even maybe as a favor to Asahi by taking the impossible decision out of his nervous friend’s hands. And was any of this really okay with Suga? Watching both of them, he and Asahi alike, get play after play after play while he stood by? Maybe, too, there was a part of him that was tired. A part of him that was scared. Maybe, this close to the thing he had chased for years, it was just easier to walk away and tell yourself it was on purpose than to want it, really want it, and find yourself lacking. Maybe he just wanted to spend the last few months of high school actually getting to relax with the friends he’d made here. They all deserved that, didn't they? There were plenty of reasons to step down and let it go. He just wasn’t sure any of them mattered. _

_ “If this is a decision you made a long time ago, I’ll respect that,” Suga pushed gently. “But if it’s not, quit it. This is our last chance. Loosen up and do what you want for once.” _

“Hm.” Daichi hummed thoughtfully, letting the memory slip away from him as he mulled over Kuroo’s comment. “You know,” he said aloud at last, “he asked me to coach volleyball with him.”

“Sugawara did?”

“Mhmm.”

“At Karasuno?”

“Yep.”

Kuroo considered that for a moment, taking a long swig of his drink before cocking his head at Daichi.

“And that’s what the fight was about?”

“Calling it a fight makes it seem a lot less one-sided,” Daichi admitted. “He asked me, I freaked and stormed out.”

“I mean, I get saying no,” Kuroo shrugged. “Lotta responsibility. Big commute. Enormous time commitment. And, lest we forget, teenaged boys are the worst. But I don’t think Sugawara ever struck me as the type to be unreasonable about that. I’m sure he’d understand your position.”

“That’s exactly it,” Daichi sighed. “He would. He always did. And the problem is—well, I mean, you’re right about all of those things, but none of those were why I walked. They weren’t even really on my mind, and if I tried to pretend they were, he would have seen right through it. I guess I was more scared of him making me admit why I said no than of actually saying it.”

“Ah. So….why did you?”

“Honestly?” Daichi’s brow furrowed as he considered it. “I don’t know. No—no, that’s not true. I think I was angry because...because after so long, I was back there, and everything felt so good, Kuroo, and I...I didn’t think I’d ever find friends like that again. And to feel like they were still there, and like that was something I could still have, that was the best I’ve felt in a long time. And even after years, Suga...I mean, we picked up like it was the most natural thing in the world. Just walking, talking, and I felt like, after we spent our entire high school lives chasing after one thing or another, beating ourselves up for the love of the game, finally there was this moment where I could see that I wasn’t just there because I was somebody’s captain or somebody’s defense or because I was strong enough to smash a point through. I was just there because someone  _ wanted  _ me to be. Because Suga wanted me to be.”

“Mm.” Kuroo nodded, but said nothing. 

Daichi hesitated for an instant but kept talking, each word seeming to pull out the ones behind it with a clarity he wasn’t sure he would ever find again if he stopped now.

“And so I guess...I guess, when he asked me, I had this moment of thinking, well, shit, what if I’m only important to him because of what I can do on a volleyball court? And if that’s the case, he’s going to be sorely disappointed, because—“

“Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me.” Tsukki suddenly reappeared at the edge of the table, looking incensed.

“Huh?”

Tsukishima gestured to Kuroo to slide over and sat down hard, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose as he crossed his arms on the table haughtily.

“First of all, you seem to have your setters confused. If you’re looking for a tyrant who will discard you when you’ve outlived your usefulness, you’ll have to check a different Karasuno graduating class, or perhaps the Olympic Village. And even so, I’ll be the first to admit you’d be welcomed more warmly than anticipated. But second of all—and I can’t believe I’m the one who has to tell you this—how the hell do you think Sugawara felt your  _ entire third year? _ ”

Daichi’s train of thought stopped with all the grace of a steam locomotive tumbling from a cliff face and landing at a realization. He stared blankly for a moment and then dropped his head to his hands.

“...Shit.”

“Yeah,” Tsukki agreed, downing his cocktail at once. “Shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m a broken record at this point, but this chapter went through...multiple different versions before I finally just let it be what it is, which is mostly Kuroo and Tsukki patiently waiting for the good captain to figure out how feelings work. Next chapter should be up quickly because it’s mostly written already! We’re getting there! Thanks for reading and for all the really kind comments lately, I promise I’ll get to them really soon!


	12. Team Meeting pt. 2

_ “If this was a decision you made a long time ago, I’ll respect that.” Suga weighed his words carefully. He knew he couldn’t tell Daichi what to do, no more than Daichi had any right to assume he could make this decision for him and Asahi. All the same, Daichi wasn’t being fair to himself—to any of them. He felt his fingers curl a bit tighter. “But if it’s not, quit it.”  _

_ He had a hunch—and when was it ever just a hunch, when Daichi was concerned, when was the boy ever able to lie to him or hide what he was thinking—that this wasn’t a choice Daichi had made with time and careful consideration. In fact, he knew damn well it wasn’t, because hadn’t he spent the whole year, the whole three years Suga had known him, talking about this moment? About the chance in front of him? Hadn’t it been the only thing he wanted, more than anything else? Hadn’t they all promised each other that much? _

_ “This is our last chance. Loosen up and do what you want for once.”  _

_ He searched Daichi’s eyes for something, anything, which could justify this sudden change of heart. But he didn’t believe it was a change of heart, not really. He had a hunch it was something much simpler than that, and it burned.  _

_ “Like I said yesterday, I’m staying,” he announced decisively. “The only way I’ll think of stepping down is if the rest of the team tells me to get out.” Even if the thought of that did haunt his nightmares sometimes, he couldn’t bring himself to believe it was really a possibility. No—there were only two real possibilities here, and he hated them both. The first was that Daichi was simply giving up. The other, and it was somehow worse, was that he was trying to secure an easy out for the two of them—to spare Asahi from any more game-ending blocks, to keep Suga from watching their dream fall apart from the sidelines. Maybe he thought—must have thought—he could spare them from any more moments of impossible choice or powerlessness. Well. That wasn’t a call he got to make for them.  _

_ Suga took a deep breath and squared his shoulders as determinedly as he could manage. He refused to let his own shortcomings be the reason their dream died. If he wasn’t good enough to get called up off the bench again for the rest of the season, fine, but he wasn’t going to hold anyone else back with him. Besides, without practices, without team meetings, without late night game plans and long bus rides and weekend trips and training camps...how much would he see either of them anymore? Would walking away from the team mean spending the last of his time at Karasuno drifting apart? He couldn’t accept that. He wouldn’t accept that. _

_ “Even if you and Asahi leave, I’m staying!” _

_ -*-* _

Suga had barely opened the door before he was having the wind knocked out of him by a chestful of Tanaka. The other man’s embrace was nearly as forceful as the words spewing out of his mouth.

“I’m so sorry, bro, I tried to stop him, I swear! I let him have it all the way to the train station, if I’d known he was gonna pull that bullshit I never would have brought him into our house, I thought we were doing a good thing—!“

“Whoa, whoa, easy does it, Ryu-kun,” Suga managed to get his hands on Tanaka’s shoulders and create enough space for a gasping breath as he offered a little smile. “What’s...what’s going on here? Can I come inside please?”

Tanaka, sniffling and clearly very worked up, nodded and stepped sheepishly out of the way. Suga rolled his shoulders, making a show of checking for cracked ribs as he slipped off his shoes. He made his way over to the couch and sat down, shrugging off his bag and letting his head fall back before grinning widely at his friend.

“Okay! You wanna try all that again?”

Tanaka stoically held it together this time as he managed his words through what seemed like a mouthful of righteous indignation. Suga did his best not to giggle at the angry tears welling up in the other man’s eyes.

“Man, I’m so sorry! We screwed everything up!”

Suga had to bite back a small smile. No doubt this thing Tanaka was wrestling with— _ whatever that may have actually been because it was impossible to understand the man— _ felt enormously serious and intense to him, but it actually made Suga feel a little silly and a lot better to have things put so melodramatically. He had gleaned enough context to determine that Tanaka had apparently given Daichi a ride back to the station but also spent that entire ride berating him furiously, and despite Suga’s lifelong efforts to be a genuinely good person, that delighted him. But as for why on Earth Tanaka believed any of this was somehow his fault…? 

“Ryu-kun,” Suga repeated gently. “ _ I do not know what you are talking about. _ ”

“Huh?” Tanaka sniffled, looking up at him with big watery eyes. “I mean Daichi. The boss man skipped town without saying goodbye to you.”

“Well, I kind of figured that much.” Suga honestly couldn’t tell if he felt relieved or disheartened by the confirmation. He decided he could examine that more closely later. “But how is that your fault at all?”

“Aaugh, I dunno, I just…” Tanaka rubbed the back of his neck frustratedly. “We were so amped to have you back, bro, you know? Me and Noya. Felt like old times! An’ you’d been working so hard, and making time for us, and helping out the little birds at the school too, we just thought..hey, maybe we can do something nice for him!”

_ Oh.  _ The room swam in Sugawara’s vision as his own eyes started watering uncontrollably too.

“Anyway,” Tanaka continued, “that was all we meant by it, it was just s’posed to be fun for everyone, and then this afternoon we were gonna have Sis and Aki-san over and maybe put up the net, play a few sets, maybe do it again next weekend—start making something really good here, yanno? It was all my fault! I thought we could start roping in some of the old gang again for real, since you were back, but I shoulda known better than to try and force things—stupid—“

“Hey!” Suga was surprised at the sternness in his own voice, and Tanaka must have been too judging by the way he jumped in surprise. Suga leaned forward on his knees, jabbing a finger toward Tanaka’s chest with intense gravity. He felt that brave, defiant little flame in his stomach from earlier flicker into something more confident. “You knock off talk like that right now, you hear me? ‘Should have known better than to force things?’ Who is that? Because that’s not the Tanaka Ryunosuke I know!”

“Huh? It’s not?”

“You’re an ace, aren't you?” Suga was on his feet now, grinning down at Tanaka with both hands on his hips. “Forcing it when it counts is your  _ greatest strength _ .”

Tanaka blinked uncertainly at him.

“Is...is this a metaphor?”

“Of course it’s a metaphor Tanaka-kun! I’m a literature teacher! Just work with me, okay?”

“Yeah, Coach, w-whatever you say!” Tanaka was sitting bolt upright now, shoulders broad and determined.

The plan Suga had been drafting in the empty space that Daichi’s departure left behind, the one he’d been mulling over the entire walk home, feeling his conviction and confidence return with every step, felt even more correct to him now. Tanaka’s teary confession had just confirmed it.

“You did something  _ amazing  _ for me, Tanaka. You and Noya both. You’re phenomenal friends, and I’m so lucky to be on your team.” His smile softened, and he punched his friend on the shoulder gently. “And you know what? We’re not giving up just because one guy decided he couldn’t make the cut. Did you quit back in high school when Nishinoya got suspended?”

“No!”

“And did you quit when Asahi walked out?”

“Hell no!”

“Did you pack it in when every other second year left you alone on the court?!”

“GrrrrraaaaahNO!” Tanaka leapt to his feet, prideful tears streaming down his face.

“Then don’t you quit on me now, kid!”

A gentle rap of knuckles on the wall caused both of them to snap their heads around abruptly in the direction of Kanoka, who stood at the edge of the room with bemused alarm.

“This all sounds very important, but if we’re going to be having a team meeting, could I possibly trouble the coach and his ace to make time for dinner first?”

-*-*

_ “Even if you and Asahi leave, I’m staying!” Suga declared, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, as if all the uncertainty and guilt which had been plaguing Daichi since Aoba Johsai’s match point had been a waste of time and energy. Maybe it had. _

_ “Hey!” Asahi interjected with a nervous frown. “I said I’m staying yesterday too. I wasn’t planning on going to college in the first place. But if the rest of the team says ‘get lost,’ well...I’d be sad.” _

_ Daichi didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. They made it sound so simple, so uncomplicated. He had felt so sure this was the decision that had to be made, for everyone’s sake, and that he had to be the one to make it, but looking at them now—at Suga’s angelic face attempting to furrow itself into something stern and resolute, at Asahi’s towering presence hovering awkwardly at his side—it was really impossible to put anyone or anything else above that singular, aching desire in his chest. _

_ “I...I will too!” the words burst forth out of his mouth before he could stop them. “I want to stay on the team! With you guys! I want to keep playing!” _

“I want to keep playing,” Daichi repeated, on the other side of a memory. He blinked, and looked up at Kuroo, who cocked his head in consideration as if what he had just said made all the sense in the world.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Daichi nodded decisively. 

“Alright,” Kuroo shrugged and tipped back the rest of his beer before setting it off to the side with a little  _ clink _ of glass. “So what’s the move then, Cap?”

“I...I don’t know,” Daichi fumbled. “There’s so much—I mean, I gotta take care of some things, like a lot of things, I don’t even know where to begin—I need to start running again, right? I need to start practicing drills, get back in shape. I need to figure out how I’m gonna tell Suga I messed up, how to tell him I want to help with the team, I need—I need to figure out all the things I need to figure out, I need…” he trailed off.

“Cake?” Kuroo suggested.

“Huh?”

“There’s cake at our apartment. Or there will be, soon. We’ve got a big whiteboard too. Great for getting your thoughts together. I use it to break down plays for work, but that’s kinda what you’re doing, right?” He glanced over at Tsukki. “And, you know, Bokuto’s a personal trainer. Kei-chan is probably full of great insights too, if we ask real nice.”

Tsukishima scowled but notably didn’t argue.

“That’s...really generous of you,” Daichi said, taken aback. “But I couldn’t possibly ask you to—“

“Yeah, I  _ know _ you couldn’t,” Kuroo cut him off. “If we waited for you to ask for help we’d be here another eight years, and to be honest Sawamura I’d much rather be roasting you for something new by then. So it’s up to you. You wanna go sort this out on your own? Or do you wanna call a team meeting?”

Daichi was torn. On the one hand, he felt like maybe this was something he should have to figure out on his own. If for no other reason than to prove to himself he could, after so many years of letting himself down. Maybe he needed to be the one to fix this. Maybe he needed to step up and take responsibility for his own life and happiness, to step up to the circumstances and right the wrongs he’d stumbled into. If he couldn’t do that, did he really deserve what he was working for? 

Suddenly he was interrupted by the thought of Suga and Asahi’s faces, so many years ago, when he had tried to walk away from it all—the stubborn refusal writ in their eyes, of course, but also the deep and abiding love and loyalty there. And not just Suga, not just Asahi, but the rest of them too. He thought of Nishinoya, his first day back from suspension, insistent that no game was worth winning if it meant winning alone. He thought of Tanaka just this morning, yelling at him for leaving even as he insisted on personally going out of his way to get Daichi to the station because he’d made a promise. He thought of Tsukishima putting his evening on hold to help him through a personal crisis he claimed having no investment in. He thought of all the people, past and present, who had leaned on him and looked to him for guidance and had never once failed to show up for him in return and he decided, in that moment, that maybe life was best played as a team sport.

“Team meeting,” he stated decisively. 

-*-*

“Team meeting!” Suga cheered, dumping an armful of markers, notepads, highlighters, and pens onto the floor. 

Kanoka laughed as she cleared away dinner plates with Tanaka’s help. “Can I come?” she asked.

“Kanoka-san, you are  _ integral _ ,” Suga declared, snagging a last rice ball from the serving plate as she passed. “We couldn't start without you.”

“You’re just saying that because you like my onigiri.”

“No,” Suga pouted at the accusation. “I’m saying it because I want to borrow the girls volleyball team for joint practices. But I do love your onigiri, as it deserves.”

“Oh? Joint practices? That’s actually not a bad idea. Is that your winning strategy?” 

“Part of it,” Suga grinned mischievously. “All will be revealed in time. It’s just one essential component of my masterpiece. My game plan.”

-*-*

“Hey, hey, HEY!” 

The apartment door was thrown open before Kuroo could even slot his key into place, and Daichi watched, bemused, as the instantly recognizable Bokuto pulled Kuroo and Tsukishima both into a resistant bear hug. He grinned widely over their shoulders at Daichi, recognition glimmering in his bright, owlish eyes.

“Captain Karasuno-san!”

“Just Daichi is fine,” Daichi laughed.

“Daichi-san!” Bokuto repeated, just as excitedly.

“Hey hey hey to you too, you monster, let me go,” Kuroo complained, rolling his eyes. “We have important business. “You can keep Tsukki, but I need to go get set up. Come on in, man.”

Bokuto dutifully released Kuroo and stepped out of the way to allow the others inside, still trapping Tsukki in the crook of one muscular arm.

“I made your favorite, Kei-chan!” he boasted.

“Fantastic,” Tsukishima replied flatly. “That will do me a lot of good when I suffocate in your bicep.”

“I thought you loved my biceps,” Bokuto pouted. 

Kuroo shook his head and sighed fondly as he slipped off his shoes and gestured to Daichi to follow. He did so, taking in the apartment as he watched Kuroo retrieve a large whiteboard on a wheeled stand and push it into the sitting area. Kuroo uncapped a black marker and offered it to Daichi with a grand flourish.

“Take it, Sawamura. Claim your future.”

“You’re a dumbass,” Daichi snorted, plucking the marker from his fingers.

“You have to believe in the magic or it won’t work,” Kuroo replied teasingly.

“If I believe you’ll shut up, will it work?”

“Hasn’t so far,” Tsukki commented dryly from the kitchen, where he sat on the counter with a piece of shortcake in his hand and Bokuto’s arms wrapped happily around his waist from behind. 

“Whatcha gonna draw, Daichi-san?” Bokuto asked.

Daichi considered the board for a moment, twirling the marker absentmindedly in his fingers as he mulled it over before stepping forward and writing, in broad blocky characters, three words:

THE GAME PLAN

-*-*

Nishinoya whistled softly, examining the map of sticky notes and scribbled slips of paper laid out on the table amidst half-abandoned bowls of rice and tea that was cold an hour ago.

“What do you think?” Suga pressed eagerly, reading Noya’s eyes for his reaction.

“Well, I’m no strategist, but it sure looks like we’ve covered all the bases.”

“Do you think they’ll all be up for it?”

“Oh, I don’t think there’s any question of that,” Noya grinned widely. “The  _ real  _ question is, are your little crows ready for  _ us? _ ”

“The  _ real  _ real question,” Tanaka interjected, “is what Nekoma’s gonna do when they lose that practice game!”

“Well they still have to agree to having one first,” Suga laughed. “But keep that enthusiasm going!”

He felt his phone buzzing in his pocket and slid the answer bar without thinking.

“This is Sugawara-san,” he answered pleasantly.

“Koushi.” Daichi’s voice on the other end was crystal clear and instantly recognizable.

Suga fell silent for a second, willing his erratic heart to still itself.

“This is Sugawara-san,” he repeated after a moment. “Can I help you?”

“Okay,” Daichi relented easily. “I get it, and I understand. And I’m not gonna waste your time. I just wanted to call to tell you that I’m sorry. But—“ he continued before Suga could spit out the rebuttal on the tip of his tongue. “I don’t want you to accept it just yet. I want you to let me prove it to you, okay?”

The proposition caught Suga totally and completely off guard. He leaned back in stunned silence, mulling over the offer. Prove it? What could that possibly mean? His heart started skipping beats again, leaping to all sorts of wild and wishful conclusions, but he bit his tongue and forced himself to remain pleasant but reserved. 

“Okay,” he replied.

“I’m not asking you for anything,” Daichi continued. The easy confidence in his voice almost brought a smile to Sugawara’s lips in spite of himself. Almost. “I just wanted to let you know. Oh, and Suga?”

“Yes, Sawamura-san?”

“I’ll be earning it back.”

Suga’s curiosity was genuinely piqued. 

“Earning what back?” he asked, puzzled. He could practically hear Daichi grin on the other end.

“My name.”

This time Suga did smile, and he had to bite his lower lip to keep it from spreading across his face.

“We’ll see about that.”

“It’s a promise. See you soon.”

“Oh yeah? How will I recognize you, with all of these grand changes?” Suga replied dryly.

“You won’t have to,” Daichi’s comeback was immediate and self-assured. “I’ll find you. Good night, Suga.” 

The phone beeped softly, letting him know the call had ended as he let his hand drop to his side and slip the phone into his pocket.

_ Do it then, _ he thought, returning his attention to the notes scattered across the floor as he felt excitement build in his chest.  _ Come see what you’re missing, Daichan. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, at the end of every chapter: next chapter will be so easy!
> 
> me, starting a new chapter and remembering that not every single character i introduce can steal every scene they're in: i’ve made a mistake


	13. The Game Plan

As it always seems to have a way of doing on nights when you can’t sleep, dawn came much too early for Daichi. He silenced his phone alarm before the first ring was even complete, already half-awake and bleary. For the briefest fraction of a second, he entertained the thought of calling the whole thing off and rolling back over into his pillow, releasing all his grandiose visions of self-improvement and determination and settling instead for a life of acknowledged mediocrity and another hour in bed. Summoning every shred of willpower he had somehow managed to rediscover the night before, he inhaled deeply and cracked his eyes open against the weak light filtering in through his window. He looked at his phone screen, then, and at the single alarm reminder he had left for himself.

> 05:00 GET UP

Okay. Straightforward.

With a sharp exhale, he forced himself upright, hissing between his teeth as the blanket fell away from his shoulders. Why did he keep this apartment so damn cold? It didn’t matter, anyway. He was definitely awake now. He glanced down at his nightstand and picked up the cheap notepad he’d brought home last night.

_ THE GAME PLAN: _

  * _GET IN SHAPE_


  * DO YOUR HOMEWORK


  * TELL HIM EVERYTHING



The following pages had details and notes scribbled in, lists and marginalia detailing schedules and reading recommendations and reminders to himself and errands he needed to run, but all of it ultimately came down to those three things. Just three, super doable, not at all intimidating things. Starting right now.

He stood, stretching out his sore and aching body—he blamed that on the train and Tanaka’s couch, though in fairness it really could have been anything these days, sometimes it seemed sleeping itself was an injury risk after age 23—and began scanning his apartment for anything that vaguely resembled athletic wear. He remembered he was supposed to meet Bokuto at the park for a morning workout, and that had seemed so reasonable last night, but his morning brain was struggling to remember how. He was...relatively confident he had some gym shorts somewhere, and common sense dictated they had to be clean since he didn’t remember the last time he wore them. Actually, the reality was somehow worse, which was that he found them buried in a box which hadn’t ever been unpacked—a fact he decided he would carry undisclosed to his grave. Mercifully, they still fit. He didn’t remember them being quite  _ that _ short, but chose to believe maybe that wasn’t an entirely bad thing. That might even be a  _ good  _ thing, under certain circumstances. After all, there were people who liked that sort of thing. There were  _ men _ who liked that sort of thing, he corrected himself. There was, maybe, potentially, a possibility that  _ Suga  _ liked that sort of thing. Briefly— _ very _ briefly—he entertained the idea of taking a picture, and then immediately threw his phone across the room instead, focusing his time and attention on less embarrassing things like figuring out which of his t-shirts was closest at hand and therefore perfect for the occasion. 

After another haphazard fifteen minutes he was grabbing his keys and shoes and closing the door shut behind himself. Once he was outside, the whole world felt different somehow. Maybe it was the pale pink sunlight filtering through the city skyline, the sedate hum of traffic and murmur of early voices, or the brisk chill of the spring breeze, but everything felt...realer, in a way it never had before. He wasn’t used to seeing Tokyo like this. Maybe he had never tried. He spent so much of his time trying to avoid being anywhere in particular that just standing still in the city before it took on the hustle of the day was strangely exhilarating. That sense of imminence, of things about to begin, settled on his skin and buzzed along the surface of it. Taking one more deep breath, he checked his watch, stretched his shoulders out, and started moving forward. 

It felt  _ good. _

-*-*

It didn’t feel very good for very long. In fact, it turned out that running felt actively  _ bad _ , at least the way he did it now. When Daichi finally, against all odds, arrived at the park where he had promised to meet Bokuto, it seemed to be not so much the victory he had imagined and much more in the way of a particularly clumsy surrender. He tried not to think about how ungracefully he collapsed onto the first available bench or how short the distance had looked on his phone, instead focusing on the next immediate thing. 

TO: BOKUTO (FUKURODANI)

Hm. Maybe he should update that.

> here

He let his head fall back against the bench and his eyes close for a blissful second as he worked to get his breathing under control before the phone buzzed in his hand.

FROM: BOKUTO (FUKURODANI)

> *flex emoji* *flex emoji* *flex emoji*

> *shoe emoji* *fire emoji*

> OK!!!

> oN MY WAY!!!1!

> *thumbs up emoji*

Daichi snorted in response and then immediately regretted it, the stitch in his side seizing up at once. Grimacing, he stretched his arms up over his head for a few slow, very intentional deep breaths, and then swiped through his phone to keep his thoughts on something other than regretting waking up this morning. He hesitated over the text message window for a brief moment before tapping the compose button.

TO: SUGA ヽ(・∀・)ﾉ O

His chest twinged a little at the contact card—it was Suga himself who had entered it, first year of high school, the same Suga who now apparently insisted on a distant “Sugawara-san”—but he tried to dismiss that thought and instead focus on the fact that they were still talking at all. As clipped as it may have been, Suga still had answered the phone last night when he called, which had to count for something. 

> good morning!

He paused briefly and, when no response came, sent another message, then another in quick succession.

> up for an early run this morning, hope i didn’t wake you

> just wanted to wish you a good rest of your weekend!

He reminded himself to continue breathing as he waited for any sign of response on the other end. He had forgotten just how early it was, but hopefully Suga was either up already or kept his phone on silent. In any case, he’d sent it already, and on the bright side the early timestamps would prove he really  _ was  _ up and running when he said he was. That was a good thing, right? The Game Plan wasn’t  _ exclusively _ about impressing Suga, but it was certainly an ideal side effect. He had almost written off this attempt at it when the phone buzzed against his palm. It was not even a little bit embarrassing when he jumped a little and almost dropped it.

FROM: SUGA ヽ(・∀・)ﾉ O

> cool. thanks 

Daichi frowned, then persisted.

> meeting bokuto at the park, gonna crush an early workout

> *flex emoji*

Wait no. That was dumb. Why did he do that? Could you unsend emojis?

FROM: SUGA ヽ(・∀・)ﾉ O

> sounds fake but ok

_ Fake?!  _ He didn’t wake up before sunrise to be personally attacked.

“Hey! Who ya textin’?” 

Bokuto’s voice over his shoulder caused Daichi to startle slightly. He somehow hadn’t heard the other man approach, despite his primary impression of Bokuto historically being “pretty loud” and “hard to miss.” 

“Jeez, tell Kuroo to put a bell on you or something.”

Bokuto cackled delightedly, grinning as he dropped himself down onto the bench next to Daichi.

“That’s pretty funny! Is it Suga-san? Tell him I said hi! No, wait, send him a picture!”

He slung an arm around Daichi and threw up a V with his other hand, an expectant smile plastered across his face. Awkwardly, Daichi relented. If nothing else, it certainly proved the not-fakeness of it all, and that made it worth a shot. Bokuto loomed over his shoulder, more enthusiastic than any human being should realistically be at that time of day, as Daichi sent the picture and shoved the phone back in his pocket. 

“Well,” he shrugged, playing off the anxious energy he felt. “Here we are. What’s the plan for today?”

“Well,” Bokuto lit up, cracking his knuckles as he hopped up to his feet and affected an authoritative stance, hands on hips. “Since you’re all warmed up, I figured we’d start with a run!”

Daichi furrowed his brow hesitantly as he pulled himself to his feet.

“But I just finished running.”

Bokuto tilted his head with a puzzled expression, blinking as he processed this.

“You haven’t started yet though.”

“No, I mean—I ran all the way here, from my apartment.”

“Okay.”

“So like...I did that. We should do something else.”

Bokuto frowned and crossed his arms.

“I thought you were doing this so you could keep up with the high schoolers.”

“Well, yeah, I mean, that’s a big part of it—“

“Then you gotta do endurance training. You ran, you took a break, so now…”

“I get what you’re saying, Bokuto-san, I really do,” Daichi protested, even as he begrudgingly admitted to himself that he’d already lost this battle. “And I won’t argue with your expertise. But it’s the first day and I’m reeeally trying to stay even a little bit excited about this so could we do anything that’s even a  _ tiny bit _ more fun than running?”

Bokuto laughed out loud, throwing his head back with unrestrained joy. He wiped a stray tear—which Daichi found just a little insulting—away as he shook his head.

“Being good at stuff is fun! And the quickest way to being good at stuff is to be bad at it as much as you can. Now tighten your laces, Bird Captain!”

Daichi gritted his teeth and did as he was told, trying hard to remind himself why he was doing all of this.The little leap in his chest when his phone vibrated was a convenient proof positive, and he opened it as quickly as possible, hoping for something to lift his spirits.

FROM: SUGA ヽ(・∀・)ﾉ O

> your shirt’s on backwards

This whole thing was going to be a lot harder than he thought.

-*-*

When Daichi finally stumbled back into his apartment, sweaty and exhausted and with his shirt still turned around wrong, it was the happiest he’d ever been to see it. He was sorely tempted to throw himself down on his bed, but managed to stay strong knowing that it would immediately mean the end of all momentum to this day. He tossed his wallet and keys down and instead headed straight to the shower, collecting his thoughts as he washed his hair and let the hot water run down his aching muscles. So far, he’d done everything he was supposed to. He woke up early, he started his day on time. He went for a run, and then went for  _ another _ , and then did push-ups and crunches and yoga with Bokuto until he swore his body invented new muscles to stretch and torment. He didn’t much care for that sort of thing, he had told Bokuto last night he’d much prefer to lift weights or hit the machines, but the guy had crossed his arms and stood his ground and made Kuroo point out the beautifully framed personal trainer certification on the wall of the apartment and insisted that sustainable, foundational lifestyle changes were more important than PRs and muscle mass, which was something so sensible that it was frankly jarring to hear it coming out of Bokuto’s mouth. Still, he had begrudgingly agreed. The whole point of The Game Plan wasn’t to make a dazzling overnight transformation. It was to commit to something. 

He was halfway through towel-drying his hair when he heard his phone buzzing on the countertop. It was probably Kuroo checking in, he figured, or Bokuto sending him some sort of access link to an online client profile he’d mentioned earlier before they split. He assumed that it was a text and he’d check it momentarily, but the buzzing persisted. Curious, he threw down his towel with a sigh and picked it up.

> INCOMING CALL: SUGA ヽ(・∀・)ﾉ O

He blinked, expecting the screen to change. It didn’t. After a dumbfounded second he realized the fourth ring was halfway through and hurriedly slid the answer bar before raising it to his ear.

“Suga! Hey! I mean, uh, Sugawara-san. What can I do for you?”

“Thank you, Sawamura.” Daichi knew he was probably just imagining the coy smile on the other end, but he kept imagining it anyway. “I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything.”

“No! No, not at all,” he crossed and then uncrossed his arms, feeling suddenly obligated to occupy his free hand in some way. He settled for leaning on the counter. “Well, actually, I was just getting out of the shower, after my workout—“

“Yes, I know, you do workouts now.” Suga’s tone was dry, but he almost sounded...flustered somehow?

“Yeah. I do actually. Every day.”

“Okay. Great. Do you want me to tell you why I was calling, or did you want to brag some more about how cool and strong you are?”

Daichi grinned.

“You’re giving me the option?”

“No. I just wanted to let you know, in case it was interesting to you, that we have a practice game with Nekoma two weeks from yesterday.”

He actually wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t that.

“Oh. Uh, okay.” There was dead air on the phone for a moment. Then, belatedly, it clicked. A practice game meant the team would be playing. That meant the coach would be there. And Suga was the coach. “... _ Oh! _ Yes! Wait, you said two weeks?”

Daichi darted out of the bathroom, hurriedly scrambling to find a pen in the mess of his apartment.

“Yeah. Their gym.”

He found one, scribbled it uselessly, and tossed it aside before picking up a better one and taking note carefully on the notepad from his nightstand.

“Got it. Sugawara, thank you. You won’t regret it.”

“Well I didn’t schedule the game for you,” Suga replied, bemusement layered under the aloof note of his voice. “I just...I thought I would pass it along. That’s all.”

Daichi felt overcome by something at the intersection of longing and affection and agony. He realized now why, in a way he hadn’t been able to before, but it only seemed to heighten and intensify the feeling. Instinct urged him to find some way, any way, to prolong the phone call, to keep Suga’s voice on the line just in case he messed something else up and never got to hear it again.  _ Two weeks, _ he told himself, like a mantra he planned to memorize.  _ Two weeks.  _

“...Sawamura?”

“Yeah,” he replied too suddenly, shaking himself out of his thoughts. “Yeah, sorry, zoned out. Hey, um. Thank you. For calling me.”

“Yeah, well…If I didn’t, I figured you were just going to keep sending me blurry selfies.” 

“No more selfies, got it.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I feel like I’m getting some mixed signals here,” Daichi teased, testing the waters just a little. He regretted it instantly when Suga’s end went dead silent again. “...er, Suga?”

“That’s not funny,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry, but it’s not. Not for me.”

“Oh. I’m...I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Suga brushed it off, in a way which left Daichi feeling like it must have not been very fine at all. “I just...I can’t joke about that right now. Anyway, um, that’s all I had to pass along. I hope you have a nice afternoon, and...maybe I’ll see you around.”

“You will,” Daichi hurriedly responded. “Yeah. Two weeks, right?”

“Mm. Bye.”

The soft beep of the call ending left Daichi staring down at the phone. It had started to dawn on him that he had probably done something a little more serious than just ditch Suga at the school when he’d left the day before—a hypothesis he’d been slowly working up to since his conversation with Kuroo and Tsukki at the bar last night—but he felt like he still didn’t quite grasp the extent to which he had done it, or the degree to which it hurt Suga. Still, he reminded himself, picking up the notepad, whatever it was that he’d done, he still had a chance to fix it. And now, even better, he had a concrete and specific goal to work towards.

_ Two weeks _ , he thought again.  _ Two weeks. _

-*-*

Two weeks, most psychologists agreed, was not enough time to form a habit. This was something Daichi read in an ebook on coaching strategies as he was brushing his teeth on the third or fourth day. The shortest accepted timeline for lasting psychological change seemed to be around 18 days, though 21 was a widely held popular belief, and the real truth was that it varied for everyone. There was no magical, golden standard for when you could stop working at something, when the conscious and continuous effort for self-improvement became an automatic process. To a certain extent this was daunting news, to think that all of this—getting up at dawn to run and shower before the morning commute, spending the transit engrossed in studying densely constructed texts from his phone screen, cleaning his apartment from top to bottom in the few spare hours and tediously ridding himself of clutter he didn’t use, then dragging his weary body to the park or the gym in the evenings—was a commitment without an endpoint, a process where the reward had no set redemption point. But on the other hand, he reasoned, it meant that the two week timeline he had given himself also applied to everyone else. The Karasuno Boys team had the same two weeks he did, which meant that they, too, would be a team only partially set in their ways—and that meant that their strategy, their approach, and (if he was lucky) their head coach would still be open and amenable to change. 

It meant that as he scrolled his social feeds every night before going to bed, wanting for the first time in memory to  _ be  _ somewhere, somewhere very specific, there was still room to insert himself into the photographs that stayed plastered behind his eyelids long after he closed them. It meant that the snapshot of Nishinoya wearing a “WORLD’S BEST ASSISTANT COACH” t-shirt already shredded from diving digs, the video clip of Tanaka doing push-ups with a very recognizable Yamaguchi laughing on his back, the candid of Suga giving a post-practice talk posted from Kiyoko’s account where you could just barely make out Takeda and Ukai smiling wistfully as they leaned against each other in the doorway—all of these things were able to feel like a promise of things to come, rather than a painful reminder of an opportunity missed. But perhaps more than any of these things it meant that, when he finally reached the end of those two weeks, already feeling like a completely different version of himself as he smiled at his phone after a warm and amicable call, he could cross off the last night on his calendar and fall back on his pillow still knowing that tomorrow was only the beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi and thanks for reading! There briefly existed a version of this chapter where the phone call with Suga was replaced by a text conversation with Nishinoya that I really did love a lot, but ultimately it just didn’t move anything forward in the way I needed it to. It pained me to condense this part of the story so much, but to be honest I could have written an entire fic just about the game plan and that would have just added fifty thousand words to this whole slow burn situation and...maybe that’s for another time. But I’m excited to finally get to this next part and let everyone hang out in the same place for real! Thanks so much again for all the sweet feedback and kind, thoughtful words—I do read them all even if I don’t have the time or spoons to respond!


	14. The Big Day

It was still well before sunrise on the big day when the Karasuno Boys Volleyball Club gathered in front of the auxiliary gym, half of them still looking very much asleep and the other half so wide awake that it seemed to Nishinoya they might just vibrate out of their skins. For his own part, he was somewhere in between the two, and knew even without asking that Suga was in the same boat. 

“I can’t tell if I’m ready to fall back asleep or so wide awake I’m about to vibrate out of my skin,” Suga commented, thumbing through the pages of his clipboard as he shepherded kids onto the waiting bus.

“Enh, no one’s saying you gotta choose,” Noya shrugged. “Are you driving this morning?”

“No, thank goodness,” Suga sighed, finally satisfying himself with the roll call and tucking the clipboard back under his arm. “Shimizu said since her nonprofit holds the insurance on the bus, she’ll do the driving.”

“Then you should try to get some sleep. You’ve been keeping pretty crazy hours lately. What time did you and Yamaguchi get done with game tapes last night?”

“I was asleep by midnight. I’ll be fine,” the yawn cutting off his sentence midway betrayed Suga’s attempt to dismiss the concern and he smiled a little as he rolled his eyes at himself. “Well. Okay. I might try to catch a  _ short _ nap. But I really don’t think I should leave the group unsupervised.”

_ “Unsupervised?”  _ Nishinoya snorted in disbelief. “The travel roster is practically more alums than kids at this point, and you don’t trust  _ any  _ of us enough to watch the kids while you let yourself doze off for an hour?”

“I didn’t say it was the kids I was worried about,” Suga replied smoothly. 

“Ouch,  _ Sensei, _ ” Noya affected an injured expression, leaning on the honorific as heavily as possible.

“It never gets less weird hearing you punks call him that.” 

The familiar voice behind them caused Suga and Nishinoya alike to jump slightly, only to be greeted by the sight of Ukai, brandishing two carriers of Sakanoshita Mart-branded coffees that steamed in the early morning chill. “Here,” he mumbled, holding them out in offering. “Compliments of your neighborhood store. Don’t say I never did anything for you.”

“Who’s saying that? I’ll fight ‘em,” Noya eagerly snagged a coffee, holding the warm cup against his cheek with a blissful grin. 

“Ukai-san, you are a  _ saint _ . And this is a blessing.” Suga gingerly received the carriers, taking care not to drop his clipboard as he glanced around. “Where’s Takeda-sensei?”

“Putting aside the question of why you just assume we’d be in the same place at 4 am on any given morning,” Ukai replied dryly, pausing to light a cigarette as soon as his hands were free, “I  _ hope  _ the answer is ‘asleep in bed.’ That perfectly nice man did his time already. If I had any sense, that’s where I’d be too.”

“In Takeda-sensei’s bed?” Nishinoya grinned, unable to resist. Ukai opened his mouth to retaliate, but Suga beat him to it with a sharp elbow to the ribcage and a stern glare.

“Noya! The kids are  _ right there _ , you cannot say things like that about their  _ vice principal _ .”

“Who’s saying what about the vice principal?” Takeda’s sudden appearance surprised and embarrassed both Ukai and Nishinoya into helpless silence as Suga greeted him.

“Sensei! What are you doing here?”

“What, can’t a humble administrator come to wish his school’s volleyball club safe travels?” Takeda smiled broadly, then chuckled at Suga’s facial expression. “I know, I know, it’s just a practice game. But it’s also something much bigger than that! I just wanted to be able to say I was here at the start of Karasuno’s next great volleyball dynasty. And then,” he added, “I will be going directly back to sleep. I am not as young as I used to be.”

“Hear, hear,” mumbled Ukai distractedly, an odd expression on his face. Nishinoya followed his gaze to the lapel of Takeda’s old Karasuno track jacket, which he realized at once was  _ not  _ in fact Takeda’s jacket, as it was embroidered with the name  _ Ukai Keishin _ . He wisely chose to ignore it. A quick glance in Suga’s direction indicated that he was doing the same.

“Well!” Suga cleared his throat, avoiding eye contact as he glanced meaningfully toward the bus. “I wish we could thank you more profusely, but it’s about time we hit the road. Ukai-san, Takeda-sensei, we appreciate everything. Noya-kun, can you take these coffees around to the other adults while I do a final check?”

“Don’t mention it,” Ukai replied nonchalantly, but his glare echoed the sentiment much more intensely— _ No, seriously, don’t say a damn word to anyone. _

“You got it,” Nishinoya answered both of them at once. 

“Did you want to say a few words to the kids before we get going?” Suga asked. “You know, as their humble administrator.”

“Oh! Do you think they’d like that?” Takeda blinked, sleepy eyes suddenly bright behind his oversized lenses. 

“Yeah, go for it. Today already feels like a pretty big day for the adults, but we should hype it up for them, too.”

Takeda smiled. He looked proud and a bit choked up, and Ukai wasn’t sure if it was because of the students or—more likely—Sugawara and his ragtag staff. Not that he had an opinion on that. Certainly not.

“Well, alright then. I’ll follow after you.”

“Sensei, wait!” Ukai stammered, causing both Takeda and Suga to turn with a questioning expression. “ _ Takeda- _ sensei,” he clarified, clearing his throat and holding out an arm. “Let me, uh, hold your jacket for you.”

“Hm?” Takeda blinked, perplexed, then looked down at himself. “My…? Oh!” He flushed pink and unzipped the jacket with anxious fingers, folding it hastily with the lapels facing inward before handing it over to Ukai with a hurried bow and a slightly-too-loud exclamation. “Thank you, Ukai-san! Very kind!”

Suga repressed a smile, politely averting his gaze as Ukai mumbled something in response and Takeda turned on his heel to follow the now-coaches.

“Kiyoko-san!” Nishinoya announced as he boarded the bus and presented a styrofoam cup with a flourish. “Coffee for you, courtesy of the kind gentleman from the neighborhood store.”

Kiyoko smiled and took the offering readily, tucking it into the driver's seat cupholder and tying her hair back in a sensible ponytail.

“Thanks. Do you know when Suga wants to get going? We’re all set here. And Yacchan’s already texted me six times asking for our ETA.”

“You, too?” Yamaguchi frowned from the seat behind her, where his long legs were tucked up beneath a travel blanket. “I told her to go back to sleep an hour ago.”

“Soon, I think,” Noya shrugged, passing a coffee to Yamaguchi as well. “I think he’s gonna have Takeda-sensei say something to the team first, they should be right behind me. Yo! Tanaka! Come be a gentleman and get coffee for your wife!”

“Bring it back here, I’m asleep,” Tanaka hollered back. Several of the high schoolers who still had their eyes open snickered.

“I outrank you!”

“Do not!”

“Back me up, Freckles, is Assistant Coach higher up than Athletic Trainer?” 

“Don’t drag me into this,” Yamaguchi protested, painstakingly balancing his coffee between his knees and slipping a pair of oversized headphones over his ears to block out any further attempts.

“Alright,” Suga sighed as he stepped up onto the bus. He tucked a pencil behind his ear and reached over Noya’s shoulder to grab one of the remaining coffees. “We’re all good by my count. Everyone’s here?”

“Yep, looks like it,” Nishinoya confirmed. He cast his glance around the bus and did a quick head count just to confirm, which came up correct. Everyone present.  _ Well, _ he thought to himself, with a little pang in his chest.  _ Almost everyone. _

“Great. The VP is just going to say a few words, and then we’ll hit the road.”

Noya nodded and begrudgingly delivered the other coffees to Tanaka and Kanoka at the back of the bus, lingering there in the aisle as Takeda appeared up front with a smile and exchanged pleasantries with Yamaguchi while Suga and Kiyoko wrangled the dashboard microphone into working order.

“Hey, listen up, team,” Suga announced moments later over the loudspeaker. “Thanks for being punctual this morning, everyone. We’re just about ready to be on our way, but before we do, please take a moment to listen to Vice Principal Takeda, who was kind enough to show up for us bright and early this morning to give you all a nice send-off.”

“Boy, the VP must really like volleyball,” Imasa murmured under his breath, only loud enough that his seat partner—and, unintentionally, the nearby Nishinoya—could hear.

“You’d have to, to be the Head Coach for three straight national volleyball tourneys,” Kaneko commented dryly from where he was still slouched against the captain’s shoulder.

“Whoa, for real?!”

“Do you, like, read? Ever?”

“Not everyone’s like you, Neko, we don’t all collect trivia instead of...uh...being nice to people...juice.”

“Oh? Is that what you put in the place in  _ your  _ brain where good comebacks are supposed to come from?”

Noya dragged a hand down his face wearily. These kids either needed to get better at banter or just kiss already. He tried not to think about the fact that he and his teammates had probably been way too similar for comfort. Or, in the case of no one in particular, still were. That little ache in his ribcage stabbed sharply at him again and he pushed it away, leaning over the back of the third years’ shared seat to interrupt them.

“Imasa-san, my dude, you aren’t going to one-up Kaneko-san this early in the morning, and Kaneko-san, there are like five adults on this bus  _ just right now _ who will start crying if you talk about that Karasuno Nationals run, so save it til Takeda-sensei is done and I can plug my ears.”

As if on cue, Takeda tapped the mic at the front of the bus and gave a little wave.

“Good morning, Karasuno Boys Volleyball Club!” he began brightly. “It’s early, and you have a monumental day ahead, so I’ll try to be brief, though your coaches can probably attest to how well that usually goes.” 

Kiyoko laughed quietly, and a broad grin stretched across Yamaguchi’s face. Tanaka sniffled a bit.

“Many poets and philosophers have spoken much more eloquently than I about the changing of the seasons and the turning of the years,” he continued, adjusting his glasses on his face as he carefully selected his words. “About the way nature, the way all living things, find stability in cycles. Things grow and change and evolve, and over time become unrecognizable perhaps, but there remains a pattern to them for those with the distance and experience to see it. That is what I see, when I look at all of you. However, it is my sincerest hope that you all don’t see that. I hope that you don’t chain yourselves to the cycles and certainties of those who came before you. I hope that you see only a great unwritten future and that it belongs not to the memory of your mentors, but to the promise of your dreams. In time, it is very likely you will ascend and fall and ascend again, and many years after you are gone from this school there will be a new team with new victories. Perhaps it will always begin this same way! On a borrowed bus to Tokyo and the strength of a bond no one will remember the origins of. There is a beauty in that. But I ask that none of you trouble yourselves yet with it. Today, think only of today, and of how to live in it for all it’s worth. There are many people watching you, people for whom your victories and defeats will feel very personal, and it will feel at times like you are carrying something which does not belong to you on your shoulders. However, there are moments ahead which  _ will  _ belong to you, and no one else. Highs, lows, treasured memories, bitter losses—take them all and keep them close. You never know when you might find yourself coming back to them.”

There was a sort of reverent hush throughout the bus as Takeda’s words settled over the team. After a beat he blushed and palmed his forehead self-consciously.

“Oh! I’m sorry, I should have just said good luck, this was silly of me—“

“KARASUNOOOO FIGHT!” Tanaka hollered from the back, before Takeda could further diminish the impact of his own words.

“KARASUNO FIGHT!” the team echoed, cheers and enthusiastic shouts punctuating the air. Takeda beamed and Suga smiled fondly, clasping Takeda’s hand with gratitude.

“Thank you, Sensei,” he said. “For everything. We’ll make you proud today.”

“You boys never stopped,” Takeda answered. With a meaningful squeeze of Suga’s hand, he descended the stairs and stepped back to stand next to Ukai, waving to the bus as it rumbled to life and pulled slowly into motion. The two former coaches stood in silence for a minute, watching it go, before Ukai cleared his throat and offered the jacket he’d been holding onto. 

“Here. You’ll catch a cold, standing out here like that.”

Takeda clutched the jacket like an offered lifeline, pulling it to his chest with nervous hands. 

“Ah, thank you.” He shifted awkwardly and bit back a soft smile.

Ukai regarded him with unmistakable fondness. His gaze lingered in comfortable silence as Takeda hummed thoughtfully, utterly occupied by the fleeting silhouette of the bus into the early morning. It wasn’t hard to guess the direction of his thoughts—how strange it felt to be standing here, watching them go. Still, Ukai couldn’t particularly say he minded this trade-off.

“That was your best one yet,” he ventured.

“Hm? The pep talk, you mean?” 

“Yeah. You’ve got a gift. Always...always did.”

“Well, I know where my contributions lie,” Takeda chuckled softly, pulling the jacket across his shoulders. “They certainly weren’t ever in coaching.”

“There’s more than one way to coach.” Ukai’s arms crossed in front of his chest, a near-involuntary gesture which very reliably indicated there would be no acceptable argument on this topic.

“I suppose,” Takeda mused, shifting ever so slightly closer, “that’s why you kept me around.”

“Kept you around?” Ukai snorted dismissively. “Sensei, don’t get it twisted, it was your name under head coach three years running. You could have kicked me out at any time.”

“After I worked so hard to get you there?” The adorable little crease that showed up on Takeda’s forehead whenever he frowned was, Ukai thought, a terribly unfair advantage in controlling a conversation. “What sense would that have made?”

Ukai studied him for a moment, thoughtful eyes taking in the shapes and planes of his face under the waning starlight of pre-dawn, and then shrugged. 

“I stopped trying to make sense of you a long time ago, Sensei.”

“I think you’ll find me more than willing to explain myself.”

“Don’t,” Ukai laughed. He shook his head and gently draped an arm around Takeda’s shoulder, pulling the warmth of him close against his torso and burying his nose in the shorter man’s curls. “It’s way too early for that.”

“Well,” Takeda averted his eyes with a smile as his cheeks flushed pink. “Then maybe you’d let me try over breakfast instead?”

“Breakfast sounds heavenly,” Ukai agreed. “But the only explanation I need is why you have the jacket I’ve been missing for  _ five years. _ ”

“I-I didn’t mean to!” Takeda stammered. “It must have, that is I th-think you left it at my apartment by mistake when we were, maybe working on game tapes, and—I mistook it for—and then I just forgot—and we weren’t—“

“Keep it.” Ukai cut him off. He hesitated for a moment, then leaned down and placed a quick, whisper-soft kiss on Takeda’s forehead. “It looks better on you anyway. Breakfast?”

“Breakfast,” Takeda managed. He glanced once more over his shoulder at the empty space where the bus had been and felt a bittersweet smile tug fleetingly at the corner of his mouth before he turned back and, following his own advice, set his mind solely on the day ahead.

-*-*

Nishinoya also found the vice principal’s words echoing in his mind as the bus pulled away, mulling them over distractedly as he slid into an empty seat and leaned his head against the window with a sharp exhale. Before long, the motion of the bus became smoother and the excitable murmurs of the high schoolers died down, everyone settling in as the time until sunrise and the distance before Tokyo seemed to stretch out unfathomably far still. To Noya, though, the miles and minutes left him feeling progressively less settled as uncharacteristic worry gnawed at the back of his mind. He dug into his pocket and pulled out his phone, hesitating a moment as he steeled himself to open the text message he’d been re-reading over and over again since Tuesday afternoon.

_ Think only of today,  _ he thought, but it was only a half-comfort. He breathed deeply and opened the message one more time, but he already knew exactly what it said—from the painfully outdated contact card to the last meticulous period:

> FROM: ACE <3

> Hey, Nishinoya-san. I got your voicemail. Thanks for the heads up. I will try to be there on Saturday. Hope you’re doing well.

_ You never know when you might find yourself coming back to them. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m a simple fellow: I write a Takeda speech, I cry.
> 
> Anyway, what’s pacing? I don’t remember. This chapter originally ended in a much different (later) place and the momentum of it was just weird so i cut it off early and added some extra UkaTake because...it’s my serotonin factory and I’ll do what I want to. Like give Yamaguchi big headphones. That’s what art is, to me.
> 
> I find I keep falling back into the same two or three sentence structures so I spent the better part of an hour just going through and trying to change up syntax like an English teacher proofreading a bunch of sixth grade essays. I don’t know if it’s actually any better than when I started, but I do know it’s an hour later and I’m tired of looking at it.
> 
> Well...Thank you so much for reading!


	15. Something Brave & Stupid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> asanoya rights

_ I will try to be there on Saturday. I will try to be there on Saturday.  _ The words kept looping in his head on repeat, sometimes getting dangerously close to what he remembered Asahi’s voice sounding like, and he wasn’t sure if he was relieved or devastated to realize it was too long ago for him to know for sure. Then his heart would skip a beat as he realized that “too long ago” might turn into “right here and now” sometime in the next ten hours. Nishinoya was not well acquainted with the feeling of fear, but whatever was sitting in his stomach right now must have been it. He rubbed his thumb over the part of the screen where the contact name appeared, frowning as he watched it appear and disappear with every swipe. 

_ “Hey, Ace! Where ya headed?” Noya caught the ball he’d been peppering to himself while he waited for the spiker to finish up in the changing room and tucked it under his arm as casually as he could manage. There was a little bit of sunset left filtering through the clouds, turning everything a dusty pink. It still didn’t hide the flush on Asahi’s cheeks as he snapped his head around and spotted his underclassman’s grin. That only made Nishinoya grin a little wider. _

_ “Oh, um—home?” Asahi fumbled with the strap on his shoulder bag as he looked down at his shoes. “Practice is over, so—I mean, I know you know that, but...yeah.” _

_ Noya couldn’t look away from the other boy’s hands—broad, deft, impossibly strong, but so tentative and gentle as he touched anything that wasn’t a volleyball. Noya wanted those hands to touch him, and he wasn’t very particular about how they did it. He wondered what would happen if he just grabbed them right now, just twined his fingers between Asahi’s like it was the most natural thing in the world and kept talking. Would it freak him out? Would he like it? Would he let it happen because he didn’t know what else to do? That wouldn’t be any good. It didn’t count if he was just too overwhelmed to say no, and Nishinoya really, really wanted it to count. More than any of the girls he’d ever flirted with, even. He wanted to hold Asahi’s hands, wanted to kiss Asahi, wanted to look at him every day without feeling guilty for staring too long or thinking the wrong things or shoving down the pride that swelled up in his chest at every spike and swing and serve, but more than any of those things what he really wanted was for Asahi to want  _ him _ enough to do them first.  _

_ “What, you don’t have any better plans on a Friday night?” he asked, sliding up next to the ace with his own hands shoved deep in his pockets, where he could trust them. “Big strong guy like you?” _

_ “Friday, Monday, Thursday, Saturday,” Asahi chuckled softly, scratching the back of his neck. “New Year’s. Christmas. The day doesn’t really matter. I just don’t have plans, period.” _

_ “Aw, that’s too bad. But hey!” Nishinoya shoulder-checked him playfully, taking in the way Asahi jumped a little at the feel of his body and secretly delighting in that. “You could always share mine.” _

_ “Oh yeah?” Asahi smiled, but his hands were clutching the strap of his shoulder bag like a lifeline. “And what are...what are they exactly?” _

_ “Well,” Nishinoya pretended to consider it. “Tonight I think I’m gonna walk to the Sakanoshita Mart and buy a popsicle. Cola, probably. I’ll sit outside on the hill and eat it while I watch the sunset finish going down. And then, if it’s a lucky popsicle, I’ll do something brave and stupid.” _

_ “What sort of brave and stupid thing will you do?” Asahi had a look of bemused curiosity on his face—but Nishinoya was positive there was something else there, too. He took his chances. _

_ “Well, that depends on whether or not you’re coming.” _

_ Asahi tilted his head curiously, mystified. His wide brown eyes were fixed breathlessly on Noya, who he regarded with the same sort of reverent amazement you might use for a shrine or a work of art—not a loud, reckless boy who said too much and laughed too easily and loved all the wrong things. It didn’t seem to matter. Noya hoped that was true. _

_ “Okay, let’s say I am.” _

_ “Then,” he felt his heart race a little bit faster as he answered simply. “I’d kiss you.” _

_ For a moment, there was silence, filled only with the soft rustle of a breeze across the courtyard and the sounds of their breathing and the weight of a shared gaze. _

_ “And...and what if you don’t get a lucky popsicle?” Asahi’s voice was hushed, almost a whisper, something soft and husky but without any fear in it. _

_ “Then I guess...I’d have to wait for you to do it instead.” _

_ “That wouldn’t be so bad.” _

_ “Yeah?” Noya managed, trying to keep his words casual. “You think so?” _

_ Asahi just nodded, but he didn’t break eye contact, and his hands stilled. Noya swallowed hard and bit back the grin threatening to take over his face. _

_ “Well,” he shrugged. “Those are my plans for right now. So...whaddya say, Ace?” _

_ Asahi smiled down at his shoes for a moment. His fingers twitched nervously, then he seemed to make a decision as he stood up straight, pulled the strap of his bag into place, and then reached down and took one of Nishinoya’s hands in his own. _

_ “Okay.” _

Noya flexed his fingers reactively as he shook off his memories. He had no right to be feeling this way. He was the one who broke things off, and even if he hadn’t been, that was so long ago it didn’t bear thinking about. The reason he’d called Asahi—the  _ only  _ reason, he reminded himself—was because he knew that if the former ace was the only alum who missed out on the reunion of a lifetime, it would be all his fault, and that made it his responsibility to fix it. Asahi should have been the very first person Suga called, but in every single version of any phone list or roster that he drafted as he worked through his game plan, Asahi’s name was the only one always missing, and Noya knew why. So he’d done what he had to do.

He’d waited til just after practice had wrapped up on Monday, when Suga was busy showing Yonezawa something about the way his wrists moved when he was tossing to the outside of the court and the rest of the team was busy finishing up with the floor. He stepped outside into the quiet courtyard and pulled up the contact card he never got around to changing and pressed “call” before he could think about it too hard. It rang three, four times before clicking over to voicemail and Nishinoya finally breathed.

_ Hi, you’ve reached Azumane Asahi _ , the recording said stiffly.  _ I’m sorry I can’t take your call right now. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you.  _

There was a beep and it took Noya a moment to realize he was supposed to be talking.

“Hey, Ace,” he managed quickly. “Asahi. It’s, uh. It’s Nishinoya. From Karasuno. Listen, I—well, it’s a long story, but Sugawara is back in town now and he’s somehow got himself roped into coaching volleyball, and it’s...it’s like this whole big thing, you know, with the neighborhood, and it seems like everyone’s getting involved one way or another, and...you should be here. And I would never forgive myself if—if I’m the only reason you’re not. Anyway, there’s a practice game at Nekoma on Saturday, and if you’re still out that way, I think it would really mean a lot to Suga-san if you were there. I’ll stay out of your way, I promise, you won’t have to deal with me or anything. But he’d get a real kick out of seeing you, and Daichi might be there too, and hey, maybe if you come you could get them to sort out whatever it is that they’re doing right now, cause…” he laughed a little and trailed off awkwardly, then cleared his throat. 

“Cause you’re good for people like that. I, ah. I guess...I guess the other thing is I miss you, big guy. A lot. And I know that’s really unfair of me. And I wasn’t fair to you when...back then, either. And even though it’s like a million years late and you deserved this way sooner, I just wanted to say that...i-if you ever wanted an explanation. Like, a real one. I um, I owe you that much. So…that’s all. Saturday. I’ll see you around, maybe. G’night, Asahi-san.”

And now here he was. And it was Saturday. 

_ I will try to be there. _

-*-*

At some point he must have dozed off, because when he woke up it was to Tanaka’s voice barking out directions from the front of the bus.

“Rise and shine, early birds! We’re fifteen kilometers out from the school, so blink the sleepies outta your precious little eyes and get ready to listen up!”

The murmurs and rustling and collective yawns of the team stirring into consciousness slowly turned into an excitable sort of chatter as they began to notice the drastic change in scenery.

“Whoa! Look how many cars there are!”

“Is that the—“

“It’s just a cell phone tower, dumbass.”

“I can’t see the ocean anywhere!”

“Tokyo doesn’t have any beaches, do you know  _ anything— _ “

“Easy, ‘Neko, leave ‘em be, they're just excited.”

“Fine,  _ dad. _ ”

Nishinoya felt something like deja vu assaulting his half-asleep brain, listening to the kids carry on that way.

“Simmer down, kiddos,” he yawned. “You’ll never hear me say this again, but listen to Tanaka-san.”

“Thanks, sweetheart,” Tanaka shouted back sarcastically.

“Don’t mention it, babe,” Noya winked with a grin.

The kids cackled and hollered delightedly before settling immediately under Suga’s unimpressed teacher look. Tanaka crossed his arms and cleared his throat aggressively.

“Alright, when we get to the school, first things first—make sure you’ve got all your stuff! You’ve got time between now and then to get your sh—your things together, so use it. We’re locking everything up once you’re all off, so if you leave your shoes on the bus, you’re playing barefoot! Right, Coach?”

“Wrong,” Suga replied flatly. “But you will be doing an extra lap of diving drills, and writing a letter of apology to Shimizu-san for wasting her time.”

“You heard the man! Second—grab your bags, get off the bus, and then group up at the bottom of the steps. We’re all going in together, as a team, so be patient and try to make yourselves look as badass as possible before we make a move!”

“Hey, Suga-san, Yacchan just texted me,” Yamaguchi leaned over the back of his seat to tap Suga on the shoulder. “She says there’s kind of a welcoming party—should they meet us outside or go on in to the gym?”

Nishinoya felt his heart stutter to a stop somewhere north of his chest.  _ I will try to be there on Saturday. I will try to be there on Saturday. _

“A whole party?” Suga sounded mildly confused. “Who did they—you know what, I guess we’ll see soon enough. Tell them to go on into the gym, the kids will need a few minutes to pull themselves together. We’ll catch up between warm-ups.”

“Ten-four, Coach!”

Noya sank down in his seat, his back against the window. He really hadn’t thought this through, he realized—he’d promised that Asahi wouldn’t have to see him, but he was going to be right there on the gym floor the entire time. And then he’d told him he  _ missed  _ him. He felt very small and very selfish and so, so reckless in a way that he hadn’t in a long time. He’d just have to keep his head down, he decided. Resist the urge to look at Asahi, to watch him, just focus on helping the kids and letting Suga catch up with his friend. Maybe he could offer to run warm-ups, keep himself occupied and out of the way. That couldn’t be so bad. 

His thoughts kept churning steadily in his mind as the bus pulled to a stop, as Suga said something to the team, as everyone jostled out of their seats and down the steps, as he helped Yamaguchi gather equipment from the overheads and lug all the water bottles into the school, as he shook hands with the Nekoma coaching staff and pretended to pay attention to the introductions. He was distantly aware of familiar voices in the stands, of shouts and cheers of  _ Karasuno fight!  _ and  _ Fly, Karasuno!  _ and  _ Don’t mind, don’t mind!  _ that he probably could have identified if he weren’t terrified to do so. Thankfully Sugawara didn’t seem any more inclined to skim the crowd than he was and instead set right to work getting the team moving through stretches and then into passing drills, where Nishinoya could conveniently find himself with his back to the away-side bleachers, and in fact he was just about to breathe a sigh of relief when—

“Nishinoya-sensei?”

Iishi, the wing spiker, had this uncanny ability of just appearing unannounced at someone’s shoulder in a way that never failed to make Noya jump out of his skin, and this time was certainly no exception. 

“Ff—“ he exhaled sharply and ran his fingers back through his hair, collecting himself as he regarded the second year with what he hoped was something appropriately like authority. It was hard to do when he had to look up to make eye contact with most of them, but he managed. “What can I do for ya, Iishi-san?” 

“Who’s that over there by the gym door, talking to Shimizu-san?” Iishi pointed, the blank mask of his face completely unfazed as he yanked his assistant coach bodily into a hell of his own creation.

Everything Nishinoya had been carefully compartmentalizing all morning flooded his brain at once, and the only coherent thought he could seem to summon was that years of regret and reconstructed memories and countless faded photographs had not done justice to Asahi’s face. Even under the harsh glow of the gymnasium lights—and why  _ would _ they do anything to diminish him, how could they when that was the way Noya had first seen him and would always remember him—there was something so subtle about him, a sort of inherent gracefulness that came from having both incredible raw power and gentle caution coexisting in one body for two decades. He looked taller, somehow, but it didn’t take Noya’s keen eyes long to discern that the difference wasn’t in his height but rather in the way he was holding it—there was no slouch in his shoulders, no invisible weight around his neck.  _ No 5’3” libero keeping him always looking down,  _ Nishinoya thought, and it twisted sharply in his chest.

“That’s one of the greats, kid,” he answered after a beat much less long than it felt. “A former ace of Karasuno High. My ex-boyfriend, Asahi.”

“Oh,” Iishi replied. He spun a volleyball between his palms thoughtfully. “He’s taller than me.”

Nishinoya snorted.

“Don’t take it personally, Iishi-san, he’s taller than a lot of people.” He turned back to face the home sides again, focusing all of his attention on observing the team’s warm-up receives as he looked for a new way to make himself useful.

“I’m 5’11”. I’m taller than a lot of people too. But if I were taller than _ everyone _ , it would make things easier. Also, Asahi-san is coming over here.”

“And you’re going over there. Get back to your passing drills before I call Coach Suga on you!”

“But I want to ask Asahi-san about being a—“

“Iishi. Drills. Now.”

Iishi considered his options briefly and apparently came to a conclusion, shrugging impassively as he walked back toward the drill line-up spinning the volleyball between his hands. Noya was about to follow after, but hesitated just long enough for a featherlight touch on his shoulder to stop him dead in his tracks.

“Hey.”

Well, thought Nishinoya wildly, at least he didn’t have to spend any more time trying to remember that voice. He swallowed hard and spun on his heel to find himself looking directly up into Asahi’s eyes. Didn’t have to worry about remembering those, either.

“You got glasses,” he said, stupidly.

Asahi laughed then, actually  _ laughed _ , and Nishinoya’s heart thundered in his chest. 

“Yeah,” Asahi responded, breaking eye contact as he awkwardly tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. “Yeah. About a year and a half ago.”

“Oh.” Noya heard his own voice crack a little, and hated it. He hated the silence worse. “Guess I missed that.”

“Guess you did.” Then, more softly, so softly it hurt, “You didn’t have to, you know.”

Thankfully, Noya was spared from having to figure out what the hell he was supposed to do with that by Sugawara, who was at first so distracted by his clipboard he nearly didn’t notice what he was interrupting.

“Noya-kun,” he stated, all business as he flipped through pages with a frown, “Benjiro was asking for you, he said he had a question about something you were showing him the other day but he wouldn’t tell me what, and it had better not be—“ He trailed off as he looked up and stared, wide-eyed, at a grinning Asahi before dropping the clipboard and throwing his arms unceremoniously around the ace’s neck.

“Asahi!” he exclaimed, laughing through a faceful of messy tears. “What are you—how did you—I never expected to see you here! I can’t believe you came!”

“A little bird told me,” Asahi chuckled, returning the embrace with a warm smile. “And I wasn’t going to miss it.”

“You should have told me!” Suga scolded him. “Now I’m going to be a mess for the whole first set, ugh, what are these kids going to think—“

Nishinoya felt his cheeks flush watching the reunion. The confirmation of knowing he’d done a good thing was nice enough, but something about the casual earnest intimacy, the uncomplicated joy of their relationship that felt so off-limits to him, like a private moment he was intruding upon simply by daring to stand here knowing full well he was the reason it very nearly didn’t happen at all, twisted in his gut. He picked up the clipboard Suga had dropped and busied himself pretending to consider the roster. 

“Actually,” Asahi spoke up just a little, glancing in Noya’s direction out of the corner of his eye, “I have a pre-game present for the team out in my car. Do you mind if I borrow your assistant coach to help me carry the boxes?”

Nishinoya snapped his head up at the question, feeling alarm grip at his throat as his brain raced to catch up with whatever was happening. Suga quirked an eyebrow curiously but waved it off and snatched his clipboard back with a dismissive hand.

“Take him,” he replied airily. “I’ve got more. Just please promise me whatever you have for them won’t get the fledglings in trouble, and me along with them.”

“N-no, no, nothing like that!” Asahi insisted, and for just a second the pleading anxiety in his eyes and the mischievous grin plastered across Suga’s face in response and the three of them standing here on a gym floor at Nekoma felt so surreally nostalgic that Nishinoya almost forgot himself, almost joined in, almost succumbed to a version of reality in which he was either 17 and in love or 25 and married and either way didn't have to feel overwhelmingly guilty about the worst mistake he’d ever made, didn’t have to keep reminding himself that he had no right to stare at the man who could have been the first thing he saw every morning if only life had turned out just a little bit differently—almost, but not quite, dismissed the ever-present knowledge that the only person he had to blame was himself. He felt frozen—not in time, not really, but rather frozen between time, or outside of it, in a space where years never passed or maybe just stacked on top of each other or went some other way entirely—and after a moment shook his head to dismiss the sensation and stop himself from spiraling. Asahi caught his eye with a shy sort of half-smile that flashed into something closer to concern for a brief instant before he pulled away from Suga and cleared his throat.

“Noya-san?” he tested. “Would you give me a hand?” 

“Oh, uh. Sure.” Noya turned briefly to Suga, uncertain whether he was hoping for encouragement or disapproval. “Suga, you got things covered here?”

“Well under control, don’t worry.” he tucked the clipboard under his arm with a subtle smile and an easy shrug. “I’m sure I can get Yamaguchi-kun to stop glaring daggers over at Kuroo long enough to help with some serves.”

“I’ll only be a minute—“

“I’m a generous man,” Suga interrupted, cutting him off with a meaningful look. “Take several.”

Nishinoya hesitated a second longer, but eventually shoved his hands deep in his pockets and turned to accompany Asahi out of the gym. It was a silent walk, aside from the ringing echoes in the rafters and the elastic murmur of the small crowd that stretched and snapped around the action on the court. It might as well have been crickets. They didn’t make eye contact as they walked off the court and out the door and down the long stairs to the parking lot, concrete and gravel crunching under their soles with a sort of grating quality that seemed to make everything take longer than it needed to. Finally they got to Asahi’s car and he placed his hands on the backseat door as if to open it and Noya thought maybe they really were just going to grab boxes and return inside and that would be the end of it and once again he felt stuck between relief and regret but he didn’t have time to decide which one it was.

“Did you mean it?” Asahi asked suddenly, still

not looking at him.

“Mean...what?” 

“That you missed me.”

“Shit.” Noya swore reflexively and stared down at his feet, swallowing hard. “...Yeah. Yeah, I did. I...kinda still do. Is that crazy? You’re standing right here, and I still miss you.”

Now Asahi was looking at him, with a level searching gaze that seemed to eventually be satisfied with whatever it found.

“Okay,” he said finally. “Then I’d like that explanation you owe me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi and thank you again for reading! I’m having just the most fun trying to weave everything together as more and more characters get drawn back into the mix here, and don’t worry—there will eventually be resolution for Actual Main Character Sugawara but trust me, all of this is important and also Asahi being happy is like at the top of my personal hierarchy of needs so some work had to be done. 
> 
> I appreciate everyone’s patience with updates! The comments I’ve been getting are so, so kind and definitely keep the writing spirits high. So, um, happy Monday!


	16. Pre-Game Talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT’S BEEN A MILLION YEARS I’M HERE I’M GOOD I PROMISE THANK YOU FOR READING

“Then I’d like that explanation you owe me.”

“The...explanation I owe you,” Nishinoya repeated numbly. If he’d had somewhere to sit down, he would have, but the best he could manage was to move his hands to a different set of pockets as the wheels in his head spun without traction.

“Y-yeah,” Asahi nodded but he looked the least bit uncertain.  _ Like he used to be _ , Noya thought in spite of himself.  _ Like he was with me.  _ “You said in your voicemail…”

“Yeah. I did.”  _ Why did I do that. _

“I mean, if you were serious about it...”

“No, yeah, I meant what I said. You deserve answers from me.”

Asahi took a deep breath and consciously relaxed his shoulders a bit, in a way that mystified Noya with how practiced it seemed.

“My therapist says it would be good for me to get closure,” he stated, but whether it was to Nishinoya or to himself was impossible to say. It stung a little either way. Noya didn’t know a lot about things like closure or tough conversations, but he knew it sounded like an ending. Finality. Definitely not anything like a second chance.

“Is that what you want?” he asked, as levelly as he could manage. “Closure?”

Asahi looked at him then, really looked at him.

“I thought I made it pretty clear what I wanted when I asked you to marry me,” he said simply. His gaze was unflinchingly direct and the sheer amount of unguarded aching in it made Nishinoya feel profoundly ashamed. “And I thought you made it pretty clear you wanted something else. I just...never found out what, or why. So yeah, if that’s what I can get...I’ll take it.”

“I didn’t give you a reason because I thought it would get you to move on,” Nishinoya stammered out before he could think. “I was trying to make it easier for you.”

Asahi stared at him, dumbfounded.

“Nishinoya, I have  _ clinical anxiety! _ Not telling me what I did wrong made it  _ five million times harder!” _

“What? That—that wasn’t supposed to happen!” Noya felt the blood rushing to his face, felt his ears ringing a little as his register jerked upward, but he was utterly powerless to stop the pitch of his voice from rising. “You were supposed to hate me!”

“I never hated you!” Asahi was worked up now too, talking with his hands the way he only ever did when he was completely overwhelmed. “I hated  _ me,  _ you—you—“

“Dumbass?” Noya supplied.

“Yeah,” Asahi sort of laughed a little, shaking his head wearily. “You dumbass.” He leaned back against the car, slowly allowing himself to slide down until he was seated on the ground. Noya hesitated, then tentatively approached and sat down next to him.

“I messed up,” he stated.

“Yeah. You did.”

“I didn’t mean to—I mean you shouldn’t have blamed yourself for what I—“

“That doesn’t really matter now, does it?” Asahi pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, sort of resting his chin as he leaned forward with a deep sigh. “I felt like I was going crazy. I couldn’t figure out what I did or why you wouldn’t talk to me. I was so scared that I’d hurt you somehow without realizing it or that I had messed up or misread something. I didn’t even want to talk to anybody about it, cause we had all the same friends and…and I didn’t know what I was supposed to say if any of them asked why we broke up. I thought everybody else must have known already and hated me for it, or...I don’t even know. I was just desperate for it all to make sense. After a while I don’t even think it was the breakup I was sad about, I just wanted my brain back.”

“I...I don’t know what to say to that.” Noya said. He honestly didn’t. “It doesn’t feel like ‘sorry’ really cuts it.”

“Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Sorry.”

“Of course I’m sorry! Shit, I’m not a monster.” He frowned. “Well. Maybe I am. I mean I like...broke your brain. I put you in  _ therapy. _ ”

“Well, that actually might be the best thing you did for me, honestly,” Asahi rolled his eyes with a self-deprecating half-smile. “I mean, all things considered, that one was coming anyway.”

“Is it…” Noya struggled with forming a sentence. “It it good? For you? I mean you seem...you seem good. You look good. Not just, like, hot, you know, but...happy.”

Pink spots bloomed in Asahi’s cheeks as he averted his glance, but Noya’s heart leapt to see the hint of a smile tug at the ace’s lips before he hid it away.

“It is good. And I am, I think. There’s lots of stuff I can do now I never dreamed I would. I’m a fashion designer now, did you know that? It’s like, all these intense people and these hard deadlines and really unpredictable work...and I like it.  _ Me. _ ”

“Really?”

“Yeah. And I’m good at it, I-I think.”

“Of course you are. That’s amazing. You’re amazing.”

Their eyes locked and for a moment, it felt like nothing had changed at all. There was Noya and there was Asahi and there was the distant sound of shoes squeaking on a gymnasium floor and the wild thought that at any moment they might hear Daichi calling them back to practice or the school bell ringing or Hinata calling one of their names to plead for a practice partner after draining everyone else dry, and then they’d laugh and fall just a little closer and find that the last seven years were nothing, were a dream, were a bad story one of them had told himself in a dark moment and they’d shrug it off with teasing kisses and the kind of reckless electricity that came with being 18 and invincible and in love. Asahi broke it first.

“You still haven’t told me why you did it.”

“Huh?”

“You told me that you didn’t give me a reason because you thought it would get me to hate you.” He half-smiled and shook his head wearily. “That’s...really stupid, but at least I have an answer for it now. But you still haven’t told me why you...why you rejected my proposal in the first place. Do I get to know?”

Nishinoya frowned. Unthinkingly he mimicked Asahi’s position, drawing his knees up and folding himself over on them. And again, sitting there like that, it felt almost like days spent on the blacktop behind the school, or down at the Sakanoshita Mart, with the sun beating down and silence like a comfortable blanket falling warm and heavy between them, sticky with sweat and half-melted popsicles and feeling like nothing would ever change. He thought about that year when he was still at Karasuno and Asahi was working early morning shifts at a neighborhood flower shop and afternoons at the corner store and evenings on a portfolio, when he’d sit outside the gym with a sketchbook laid out across his long legs and sometimes fall asleep in the waning sun before practices let out, just so he could be there to walk halfway home with Nishinoya. Everything felt like golden sunsets and stolen moments and big plans...and...and….

“I was scared,” he managed, finally. “Don’t say anything yet. I know. But it’s true. I...I wanted you to know how strong you were, and I wanted you to know how brave you could be, and I was terrified that I was the one keeping you from doing those things because I didn’t know how not to do them for you. I just…” his eyes started watering uncontrollably and the collective tears left by nearly a decade of stubborn repression gushed down his face all at once. “I just loved you so much, Asahi, and when I thought about how much more you could be without me standing in your way, I didn’t know how to forgive myself for making you love me back. I wanted you to have great things. I wanted you to make brave decisions. And instead you wanted me, and...and…”

“And you thought that wasn’t brave?” Disbelief and hurt mingled on Asahi’s face with a grave, sort of stony understanding. He searched Noya’s glassy eyes and tear-streaked cheeks for misdirection or some further explanation but there was none to give. He sighed and gently reached up to brush away the tears with the pads of his thumbs, cradling his ex-almost-fiancé’s face in his strong, kind hands. “Nishinoya. Proposing to you? Making a decision about the rest of my entire life, all at once? Getting down on one knee in front of a boy who made me feel like I was never,  _ ever  _ going to know what came next, and asking him to spend the rest of his life bringing me along with him? Marrying a man, period, I mean—how can you not see that was the bravest thing I ever did? You made me feel like I could do anything, but I never thought I couldn’t do those things without you. I just knew I didn’t want to.”

Noya reached up tentatively to cover one of Asahi’s hands with his own, leaning into it as if to anchor himself to the sheer fact of it being there. He blinked slowly, just breathing as the tears rolling down his face began to ebb and the ache in his chest began to dull. 

“I was so stupid,” he whispered.

“No,” Asahi corrected him gently. “You were scared. I of all people can understand that.” The hard ache in his eyes softened to something more wistful. “I wish you would have given me the chance to.”

“I’m...I’m a little scared right now, too,” Nishinoya admitted. “I know this doesn’t automatically fix anything, and I know I don’t have the right to ask for anything from you, even if it’s only a text or a phone call or…” he trailed off, unable to even complete the thought. “I just don’t want to lose you again, ace.”

Asahi’s breath hitched for a moment and he searched Noya’s eyes as if looking for something to make a decision. Apparently, he found it.

“Then...will you let me be brave for both of us right now?” He leaned in slightly, bringing their faces closer together.

Nishinoya nodded, not trusting himself to words or to hope, and before he had a moment to doubt it he was pulled into a kiss. In the brief instant where he tried to make sense of it he expected it to feel like nostalgia, like some near-forgotten thing his lips were aching to remember, but the truth was this was nothing at all like kissing Asahi at 18. There was a decisiveness to it, a gravity, a certainty that Nishinoya felt must have meant either  _ I love you  _ or  _ goodbye  _ and he reached up to twine his fingers in the curtain of Asahi’s hair as if by deepening the kiss he could lose himself in the space in between those possibilities. He felt the reassurance of strong hands trailing down to the small of his back and doubt giving way to something more tender, more cautious. He parted his lips just slightly, tentatively guiding their mouths into something more like conversation, trying to see if any of the old words still fit between their tongues, and found several that did and a great many more that didn’t and some, brand new and bittersweet, that made him think he’d like to try being a student again if it meant learning this particular language. When he finally pulled back, some moments later, there was a faint shimmer of laughter on his breath.

“What? What is it?” Asahi asked, sitting up a little straighter as he fixed the glasses that Noya was still getting used to.

“You taste like toothpaste,” he grinned.

“Huh? Yeah, I—“

“You  _ brushed your teeth _ ,” Noya pressed, leaning in with a knowing smugness that caused realization to settle across Asahi’s face in a bright pink blaze. 

“I just—I always carry a travel toothbrush, you know that—“

“You  _ planned on kissing me _ !” Nishinoya laughed, actually laughed, euphoria and adrenaline coursing through his veins in a way that was very familiar and very strange all at once. He jabbed a finger into Asahi’s chest teasingly as he sat back on his knees, in the only position where he ever had the height advantage over his still-seated and deeply flushed counterpart. “Admit it!”

“I mean I thought about it!” Asahi relented, visibly distraught. “I-it’s not like I had a  _ plan _ , I just—“

Noya leaned in and kissed him again, short and very sweet, and then stood to offer Asahi a hand getting to his feet. Asahi smiled and took it but did nothing to pull himself up, instead just remaining seated as he looked up at Nishinoya and took a moment to let his eyes wander.

“...What? What are you looking at?”

“I’m just...catching up.” Asahi stayed like that for another moment, a fond sort of softness in his gaze, and then pulled himself to his feet, nearly unbalancing Noya in the process but laughing gently as the smaller man stumbled into his chest. He placed a hand on Noya’s shoulder to help steady him. “You know, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen you wearing a tie before.”

“Does it look dumb? I knew it,” Nishinoya frowned, tugging at the necktie with self-conscious discomfort. “It’s Tanaka’s, I don’t even own one. Well it might technically be Ennoshita’s, cause I don’t think Tanaka ever owned one either, but I got it from Tanaka. I thought—you know, with the collared shirt and the track jacket—coach material—“

“No, no, it looks good. Actually very on-trend of you,” Asahi reassured him. Suddenly he remembered something and his expression shifted abruptly. “Oh! Shoot, the boxes, we have to get these inside—“ he pulled out his car keys and fumbled his way into unlocking the door.

“So that  _ wasn’t  _ just a ploy to get me alone?”

“No.” Asahi’s face was still deeply rosy, but he kept a straight expression as he pushed a large cardboard box into Noya’s arms. “I came to see Suga, remember?”

“Right, right,” Nishinoya replied patronizingly, smilingly, still high on forgiveness and the taste of toothpaste. “But _ I’m _ the one you came here to kiss.”

Asahi pulled the other box from the car and considered it for a moment as he pushed the door closed with a shrug.

“Mm, sure.”

Noya’s face fell.

“What do you mean, ‘sure’?”

“I mean yeah, that’s the way it worked out. Don’t worry about it.” He smiled and began walking back toward the gym.

“Don’t worry about—Asahi,  _ wait _ , what does that  _ mean?! _ ”

“I said don’t worry about it,” Asahi responded good-naturedly, and for as sure as Nishinoya was that this was the ace’s idea of well-deserved payback, he still wasn’t able to let it go that easily. Especially not when Asahi added, offhandedly, “Besides, Noya-kun, Suga probably doesn’t remember that kiss anyway…”

“He  _ what—“ _

_ -*-* _

It sure didn’t  _ feel  _ like a practice game, that much was a given. Both Karasuno and Nekoma had drawn out what could very modestly be considered a small crowd, and the chatter amongst them all—old friends and new friends and storied rivals alike—filled the gymnasium with sound and life in a way Suga had not anticipated. As a coach, he was grateful—this was the kind of pressure he couldn’t teach the team without experience, and to get to do it with such low stakes was objectively ideal. As Sugawara Koushi, former alternate setter for Karasuno High, though, he found the thrill of it tugging at his memory and quickening his pace in ways that were equal parts nostalgic and demoralizing. 

So many people here. And out of all of them,  _ he  _ had ended up in these shoes. If he dared to look up into the stands, he had no doubt he’d see more than one face better suited to his job. He shook his head a bit and cleared his throat. He could think about all of that later, once the kids weren’t counting on him. For now, there were more important things that demanded his attention. 

He glanced over at Coach Naoi on Nekoma’s side, making eye contact and tapping his watch inquisitively. Naoi glanced at the court and then offered a gesture that implied  _ five more minutes?  _ which Suga accepted with a nod. He remembered something Ukai had said once, about the now-head coach for the other team and their parallel high school experiences, and his brain supplied a half-helpful observation about bad setters making good coaches that he dismissed with a frown.

His hands were freezing.

“Imasa-san! Kaneko-san!” he called over to the third years, beckoning them out of the warm up rotation where Yamaguchi had the rest of the team practicing serve-receives.

“ _ Hai, _ Coach-sensei, what’s up?” Imasa jogged up, looking bright-eyed and even-keeled as always, with Kaneko at his side in the sort of intense, distant pre-game trance Suga had seen on a dozen other players through the years. Usually the very good ones, he noted hopefully. Though he supposed it could also be nerves—Asahi had looked that way sometimes. His opponents had probably interpreted it as intensity, too, and that thought felt like a punchline nobody else was here to enjoy. He should tell Daichi later, he thought, and then reprimanded himself for it.  _ Focus. _

“We’re gonna wrap things up and blow the whistle here in about five minutes,” he explained. “So here’s the deal. This is just a practice game, and ideally, what we do here today isn’t going to be much of an indicator of how we’ll play three months from now, so I don’t want anyone getting caught up in dropped balls or botched plays. But we  _ do  _ have to start looking ahead at what kind of team we want to be, and that starts with you two. The first call you have to make is how we start our games. Who’s doing the pre-game talk?”

Imasa and Kaneko looked at each other sort of blankly.

“Uhh,” Imasa frowned slightly. “The coach? I thought?”

“Some teams are run, like, entirely by the captain,” Kaneko noted. “Aoba Johsai does that.”

“Yeah but Aojoh’s captain is their setter,” Imasa countered. “And he’s All-Japan, so like…”

“I don’t care how we do it,” Suga interrupted. “But I want you two to make that decision, and I’d like you to make it today. I know this is a big ask. A lot has changed very quickly, and we’re all still feeling each other out. My job is to shape this team to be the best it can be, and I will—but I’m sure you both expected to be leading the charge this year, and at this point you probably still know the team better than I do. I haven’t been here for three years watching it grow and change, and you have, so if this is the one thing you need to keep ownership of, I understand. You can talk it over until warm-ups are done if you need to.”

Imasa glanced at Kaneko again and it seemed the two of them came to some instant agreement. There was something bittersweet about it, Suga thought, seeing that unspoken language and realizing there was probably nobody left he really remembered how to speak it with. Not the way he had back then. It ached the way smiling for too long ached, the sort of tenderness that can only really be left behind by a good thing, and he thought to himself that this was a feeling he was likely going to be spending a lot of time with. He remembered, oddly, sitting in Takeda’s office on the day—was it really only three weeks ago now?—that Natsu had approached him about coaching the team, and about what Sensei had said then. About how easy it would be to resent his students for the opportunities they had. He supposed he could see now, in this moment, exactly what Sensei had meant—in fact, he couldn’t  _ not  _ see the million other paths his life could have taken, laid bare in something as simple as the shared glance of a team’s captains or the spin of a volleyball off a setter’s fingertips—but a stronger, simpler realization overpowered it. 

He’d already been here before. Life had already handed him this test, the one where he watched his own battles fought by someone younger, stronger, and to greater success. And for all his regrets, he realized, nothing in him regretted the choice he’d made about that: to throw everything he had into making sure that anyone who stood in his shoes had the chance they needed to do it better. And in his own way, that was how he’d win.

“You’re right that we were ready to do this all on our own, Coach-sensei,” Imasa stated with a determined smile. “We thought we’d have to, you know? But if it had just been us, we sure wouldn’t be in Tokyo today, and we probably wouldn’t be ready for a game either. Me and Kaneko-kun, we can't really make up time for the two years we spent without a good coach, but we want the rest of the team to get every minute they can. So...we want to hear everything you’ve got for us, anytime you’ve got it! And we’ll be there to back you up, too.”

Suga smiled. 

“Alright then, Captain. Thank you. Go join the others for serve-receives, we’ll line up in about three more minutes.”

They both nodded and practically sprinted back to places, and Suga allowed himself to waste a moment watching them go. After a beat, he took a deep breath and finally, hesitantly, cast his glance a bit further up, to the stands. 

Yachi really hadn’t been kidding:  _ party  _ had been an apt descriptor of the crowd up there, by the looks of it. Most of them he recognized immediately—Ennoshita looking every bit as pulled-together and calm as Suga remembered him, Yachi herself fretting over a conversation with Kiyoko as the older woman smiled and leaned over the rail, Tsukishima in a Karasuno jacket and Kuroo in a Nekoma tank top and, of all people, Bokuto in a t-shirt that read simply “BOKUTO”. Some he didn’t. There was a woman with Ennoshita, a Nekoma-appareled man talking to Kuroo, a few high schoolers on either side of the court cheering with the kind of enthusiasm reserved for kids who have no better place to be on a Saturday. But really, every single one of them was just a temporary foothold before Suga finally gave in and let his gaze drift to the one person he could never lose in a crowd.

Either by some incalculable coincidence of fate, or simply by the very predictable odds of two people stealing regular glances at each other often enough over the course of their lives to set a watch by, the exact moment that Suga looked up at Daichi found Daichi looking directly back at him. Their eyes met and Suga smiled before he could remember why he shouldn’t, before he could remember restraint or the shape of their fight or the thousand and one ways Daichi had unwittingly dedicated his life to the repeated assault on Sugawara’s stupid heart—he just smiled, just for a second, and Daichi lit up like a Christmas tree. He grinned and waved, in a way that was so utterly unnecessary that it made Suga laugh in spite of himself, and he shook his head and turned back to his watch, grateful that he hadn’t invested in a fancier one with a heart rate monitor. He didn’t want to know. He was debating allowing himself one more glance, maybe a stupid little wave in response, when he was interrupted by the dramatic return of Nishinoya and Asahi.

“Japan Post!” Noya crowed triumphantly, proudly hoisting a cardboard box over his head. “Special delivery!”

“You two seem a little out of breath,” Suga observed, taking the other box from a red-faced Asahi and stumbling slightly under its unexpected weight. 

“We ran up the stairs,” Asahi explained.

“We totally made out,” Nishinoya declared simultaneously. They looked at each other with mild alarm.

“Both...both are true,” Asahi coughed awkwardly. He tucked an errant strand of hair behind his ear.

“Okay,” Suga shrugged. “Cool, but how am I supposed to open this? I don’t suppose either of you brought scissors.”

Asahi fumbled for his keys while Suga cast a raised eyebrow at Nishinoya, who grinned innocently. The tape fell away easily under the jagged edges and Suga gasped as he pulled back the cardboard.

“You...how did you…?”

“I saw from her pictures that Shimizu-san was helping out with managing the team, so I asked her if there was anything I could help with,” Asahi explained with a sheepish smile. “I originally was going to get the banner redone, but she thought this would be better, and...I know a guy.”

Suga clutched the box to his chest as if it could stem the tears welling up in his eyes. A look of alarm crossed Asahi’s face.

“Wait I’m sorry did I do something—“

“You did everything right, Asahi-kun,” Suga laughed, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of one hand. “I just don’t know what to say.”

“Call the team over,” Noya suggested, pulling one of the sleek black track jackets out of the box and admiring it under the gym lights. “Tell them it’s game time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Sorry for the relative delay in posting this chapter! It’s long and there’s kissing, so...hope that helps? Thank you as ever for all the deeply lovely comments! I love to read them and I do usually, eventually, get around to responding, and they do absolutely keep me motivated to update, so...shout out to everyone who made this chapter happen ✌️


	17. Outplayed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it’s been 84 years since my last update
> 
> feel old yet?

In the end, they won a single set out of six, and it wasn’t humility that forced Sugawara to admit it should have been a complete shutout. Kaneko’s merciless blocking and Iishi’s completely unpredictable spikes somehow managed to string together a series of points at all the wrong moments for Nekoma and bring the first set of the second game to a frankly baffling victory. Luck was, of course, not a reliable strategy, and they were going to have to figure something else out before the real competition season if they had any hope at all of holding their own, even against less polished teams than this. Nevertheless, they played hard, and the pride streaming down his face in salty rivulets at the post-game talk was genuine and, he assured them, earned. With a loud  _ KARASUNO FIGHT!  _ and a clumsy but promising captain speech by Imasa, he sent them out to sweep the floors and hit the changing rooms and then took an actual breath for the first time in hours.

“Thank  _ god _ ,” Yamaguchi sighed, beating Suga to it by a millisecond. “I thought my heart was going to give out halfway through the first set.”

“Aren’t you, like, the only one here who still plays?” Noya prodded, clapping him teasingly on the shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be used to it by now?”

“Yeah, but it’s completely different on this side of things! I haven’t spent a full game on the bench since high school. And even then, I knew if things got  _ real _ sticky, I could, you know,  _ do something. _ ”

“It’s an adjustment,” Suga mused. “But it’s not like you  _ didn’t  _ do anything. We got three points from Sakurai-san’s float serve in that last set, and I know for a fact they didn’t learn it alone.”

“Ah, it’s still not the same.”

Suga considered it for a moment, watching the teams with a bittersweet taste in his throat as they cleaned the gym and swapped friendly insults, several of them having already zeroed in on their Nekoma counterparts with a tenacity only achievable by high school athletes on a competition high. 

“No,” he admitted finally, with a sort of wistful smile. “It’s not.” 

He turned decisively to the rest of the staff, working just a little too hard on the grin stretching his face. “Well! That’s that. Good work, everyone. Go ahead and make your rounds with the cheering section. I can finish up here. We’ll send the kids to hit the changing rooms after they’re done cleaning and then meet back down here in...thirty minutes, maybe? That should still give us plenty of time to feed everyone before we have to get back on the road.”

There were murmurs and enthusiastic nods as the staff dispersed in their various directions, all of them seeming to follow the magnetic pull of their counterparts in the stands even before they were completely aware of doing it. Only Yamaguchi lingered behind for a second, torn between the supersonic hum of Yachi’s laser-sighted anxiety and a question he seemed not quite certain he wanted to ask.

“You good, Yamaguchi-kun?” Suga prompted him.

“Ah, yeah,” Yamaguchi’s face flushed slightly, his freckles fading into dusty pink. For a moment, it seemed like he was just going to brush it off and push the thought aside, but he suddenly opened his mouth again with an awkward sort of determination. “It’s kinda weird, right? Not knowing where you stand with somebody? Like you think you left things in one place and then you realize they have this whole life they’re living somewhere that doesn’t have you in it. It’s...it’s weird,” he repeated, as if embarrassed to find himself standing at the end of that sentence.

“Mm,” Suga hummed noncommittally. He resisted the natural instinct to let his eyes flicker up to the stands. “Yeah.” 

He was a practiced optimist and a lifelong caretaker—a hundred different pieces of advice sprang to his tongue without much effort. Somehow none of them seemed appropriate. Maybe it was a guilty conscience, and the fact that he resented above all other things the slick and nauseating feeling that hypocrisy left in his stomach, or maybe it was just that he well and truly didn’t know what to say. It  _ was  _ weird. And maybe that was the only thing that could be said about it. Making any other sort of statement felt like tempting his own fate. He was relatively certain Yamaguchi was talking at least partially about himself, but was also sure he was perceptive enough to have opened his mouth out of a sense of kinship. And Suga’s only real response on that account was,  _ yeah buddy, it sucks, what are either of us supposed to do about it other than smile and nod and try not to think about the ex boyfriends we never had? _

“I guess,” he ventured instead, “that it’s probably weird for them too.”

Yamaguchi looked at him curiously, with a painfully familiar glimmer of something halfway between hope and fear.

“Yeah?”

Suga shrugged.

“I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know. But,” he nodded briefly, subtly, up toward the stands where Tsukishima was standing with his hands shoved deep in his pockets, lingering as Kuroo and Bokuto carried on some conversation with Nekoma alums Suga didn’t recognize. “He probably didn’t come to watch club volleyball.”

“No,” Yamaguchi laughed a little, staring down at his shoes. “I guess probably not.”

“That’s all I got,” Suga admitted. “But I think that if you make her wait any longer, Yachi-san is going to vibrate through the floor. And I can say for certain that she’s not the kind to withhold her affection.” He paused for a second, then added, gently, “Maybe we could both stand to pay more attention to friends like that.”

“Heh. You’re probably right. Hey, thanks,  _ Sensei. _ ” Yamaguchi smiled broadly as he waved up to Yachi with an  _ I’m coming!  _ sort of enthusiasm. “For, like, everything. I’m really glad to be a part of all of this. Everyone is. I hope you know that.”

“Yeah?” Suga was a bit taken aback.

“Well, yeah.” Yamaguchi turned back to him, laughing a little. “We didn’t just come to watch club volleyball.” He punched Suga lightly on the shoulder and then bounded off, taking the steps up to the bleachers two at a time. Yachi squeaked delightedly as Yamaguchi pulled her up into a bear hug, her tiptoes just brushing the ground, and managed a little wave down in Suga’s direction. He returned it with a smile, feeling his chest sort of squeeze a little tighter. He was used to being the accomplice to other people’s happiness—the architect of other people’s success—but for some reason it had never occurred to him to consider himself as being at the center of any of it. Even now, watching his former underclassmen rejoice in their little reunion, it felt like the whole day was something happening primarily to other people while he stood by with a clipboard taking notes. They’d never talked about it, really, but he had the feeling that Yamaguchi of all people would understand this feeling if he’d ever found the words to explain it. Maybe that was why his acknowledgement, more than anyone else’s, managed to land in a way that caught him off guard.

Suddenly a wave of exhaustion overtook him. It had been a long few weeks. Rewarding, certainly, and self-driven—but long nonetheless. Late nights, early mornings, endless practices, lesson plans, sleepless hours, unsolvable problems, unfixable dilemmas, texts from his realtor, paperwork upon paperwork, and always in the back of his mind—

“Great game, Coach!”

Suga had readied himself for the treacherous fluttering in his chest and the inevitable flip in his stomach that he knew he’d have to confront at some point that day, so when he heard Daichi’s voice it was a matter of simple preparation to take a breath and turn around with a pleasant, perfectly platonic smile ready to go. However, as usual, he found himself completely and totally outplayed. It  _ was  _ Daichi, of course, and that was enough of a problem on its own—him standing there looking unexpectedly pulled together and neatly trimmed and with that broad, easy, just-for-Suga smile, and seeming inexplicably to have  _ dressed up for this _ because what kind of person wears a  _ collared shirt to a high school volleyball game, Daichan _ —but what really had Sugawara just completely, totally off-balance was what he was holding. 

“What. Are those,” he managed numbly.

“Um. I think the lady at the shop told me they were chrysanthemums?” Daichi frowned and looked down at the bouquet in his hand. “I just picked—you know, cause they were orange—I thought—“

“You brought me flowers.” It was an obvious sort of statement, but Suga’s brain refused to move past it. Many, many careful years had been spent building up a necessary wall between the sorts of daydreams he allowed himself to privately indulge in and the reality that he knew he had to adhere to, and yet again Daichi had managed to fracture that wall with little regard for the effect on Koushi’s battered heart. But this time, with the cumulative effect of the day’s heightened emotions and the fatigue of everything the past few weeks had brought, it was simply too much to handle.

“You’re...upset?” The look on Daichi’s face just made everything worse—hurt and confusion and a note of panic, a look that made Suga reflexively want to fake a grin and force a laugh and say  _ jeez, Sawamura, I really had you going there, huh? You really thought I was mad at you! Ha ha ha, you should have seen your face, wait til I tell Asahi,  _ or something, anything, just to make it stop and push this conversation off until another day, preferably never, because he couldn’t fathom a day when he would be ready to accept the consequences of it, but he couldn’t keep doing this either. It would have been nice to pretend it was his self-worth that stopped him, but the truth was more or less that he didn’t trust himself to make the lie convincing. 

“No, I’m not upset, I just—“ Suga ran a hand down his face and covered his mouth to keep from crying. 

“Sugawara, Suga-kun, hey, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—look at me—“ Daichi had closed the space between them in an instant, his free hand squeezing Suga’s shoulder gently, hesitating before reaching up to cradle his face. It was all more than Suga could take.

“What are you sorry for, Daichi?” he asked, exasperated. “Do you even know? Do you have any idea, at all? Or are you just saying it because you think you’re supposed to?”

“I—“ Daichi faltered for a second, guilt and uncertainty in his eyes as his gaze flickered away. “I know I fucked up, and—“

“Just stop,” Suga sighed and pulled the warm touch of Daichi’s fingers away from his face gingerly. It felt so unspeakably cruel that he had to break his own heart in order to save the shattered pieces. He wondered if he should be a little more selfish, take what he could get while he could get it even if he knew the intention didn’t match the gesture. But he’d let it go too far before, let himself get swept up in that self-indulgence, and look where that had ended: alone in the high school courtyard, nursing his wounded feelings. “It’s not worth it,” he murmured aloud, half to himself, and reluctantly dropped Daichi’s hand. “Thank you for coming. It means a lot. Really.”

“No, wait, I—this happened all wrong.” Daichi pulled back his rejected hand as if it had been burned, a deep frown creasing his face as he clenched and unclenched his fingers uselessly. “Koushi, please, there’s something I need to tell—“

“Don’t  _ Koushi  _ me!” Suga heard the snap of his voice, much harsher and sharper than he had intended, and cringed. He breathed deeply and ran a hand through his hair, pulling himself together. “Just...don’t. And please don’t tell me whatever you’re going to tell me.”

“Why not?” there was an edge to Daichi’s voice too, something frustrated and desperate in a way he didn’t remember ever hearing it before. He hated that he felt hope still flickering in the pit of his stomach. Enough, he decided sadly, was enough.

“Because whatever it is you’re going to say, it’s not going to be what I want to hear,” he admitted quietly. He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to meet Daichi’s as he forced a confession. “And if I let you break my heart one more time, I am never going to forgive myself.”

There was nothing in response but silence. Suga felt it pierce his heart like a needle.

“I’m sorry,” he managed. “I’m so sorry, Daichi, I know you don’t understand and I know it’s not fair to you, I want to be able to be your friend so badly and I know you’ve been working so hard to fix this, I just—“

“Is that what you want?”

“What?” Suga blinked his eyes open, caught off guard.

“Is that what you want?” Daichi repeated. “To be my friend?” For maybe the first time in his life, Suga found his face to be completely unreadable.

“I—yeah,” he stammered. “Of course I do.”

“Well…” Daichi looked down at the flowers in his hand before seeming to come to a decision. “It’s not what I want.”

Sugawara felt his brain shut down. 

“...What?”

Of all of the universal constants which he had ever taken for granted, of all the laws of physics and mathematics and probability and nature that ruled his reality, the one which Suga had never, ever questioned was that Daichi would, to some degree, no matter how strained or far removed it had to be, remain his friend. Even in high school, he had kept his feelings buried in his chest not because he thought Daichi would end their friendship, but because the idea of still being treated with so much earnest closeness and support even after the inevitable rejection felt unbearable. To suddenly hear him say he was ending their friendship didn’t hurt, it just wasn’t something Suga was capable of processing at all in the first place. Daichi might as well have said he was moving to Mars, for all the good it did Suga’s brain.

“I said,” Daichi repeated, with slightly more conviction now, “that I don’t want you to be my friend.”

“What are—what do you—“

“You know I would love to tell you, Sugawara-san, but you specifically said not to.”

Sugawara stared blankly, every helpful thought in his head having taken a total and abrupt leave of absence. Daichi cracked a small grin, and Suga suddenly felt all of the blood in his body rush to his face at once.

“That’s not funny—“ he managed, his throat closing awkwardly around the words.

“I think it’s a  _ little  _ funny,” Daichi replied, still grinning. Suga wanted to surgically remove his own heart for the absolutely treacherous way it responded to that grin.

“I think you’re the worst.”

“Can I  _ please  _ tell you what I need to say now?”

“No,” Suga pouted, crossing his arms around his clipboard, as if by pressing the flimsy plastic to his chest he could somehow ward off whatever was going to happen next.

Daichi sighed, but there was still a begrudging smile tugging at the corner of his lips. He considered the flowers in his hand again, the bright orange blossoms with their big white bow somehow almost absurdly out of place. Like party balloons at a funeral.

“This is silly,” he stated, looking back up at Suga. He was right. The whole thing was silly. The din of high schoolers yelling in the background, the persistent buzzing of gymnasium lights, the squeak of sneakers on the floor. What a terrible setting for a melodrama. Suga giggled a little in spite of himself. 

“Yeah,” he relented. “It is.”

Their eyes met and they both smiled a little, awkward and apologetic. There was a halting moment where it seemed like one of them was about to say something important, a breathless sort of anticipation. Then suddenly, in the background, a team member—almost definitely from Karasuno—shouted an expletive, and the two of them burst into laughter, all of the tension dissolved in an instant.

“I need to get these kids rounded up,” Suga reluctantly acknowledged.

“I’m in love with you,” Daichi stated almost simultaneously.

Suga dropped his clipboard as every neural pathway in his brain stopped working at once.

“That’s what I needed to tell you,” Daichi explained. It was delivered so bluntly and matter-of-factly, as if he had just told Sugawara that his shoe was untied, or there was rain in the forecast—utterly at odds with the magnitude and impossibility of the information he had just revealed. 

“There is no way you just said what I think you said.”

“I’ll say it again.”

“You don’t have—“

“I’m in love with you, Koushi.” Daichi repeated himself with that same straightforward directness, taking one of Suga’s hands in his own and fixing him with an unwavering, utterly focused gaze that made any accusation of practical joking die in Suga’s throat at once and a sobering little shiver run down his back. Somehow, against all odds, Daichi was completely serious. “And I think you have feelings for me too, but I gotta tell you that’s basically only because some other people said it because I am really,  _ really  _ bad at this whole thing.”

“Yeah,” Suga nodded, his voice barely clearing a whisper as his eyes filled with tears. 

“Yeah, you do, or yeah, I’m really bad at this?”

“You’re terrible at it, Daichan, really bad.”

Daichi grinned—a big, goofy, stupid-in-love grin that made Suga blush just from proximity.

“What, what are you smiling about?” 

“You called me Daichan.” 

At many moments throughout his life Suga had thought to himself, usually with a despairing sort of reluctant affection, that he couldn’t possibly be any more in love with the man standing in front of him. It was maybe the happiest he had ever been, now, to realize he had been completely wrong. 

“I told you,” he managed with a little laugh, feeling the tears welling up and rolling warmly down his cheeks. “You could have it back when you earned it.”

Daichi’s smile softened as he reached up and brushed away the tears gently with the pad of his thumb. This time his hand lingered and Suga leaned into it, covering Daichi’s fingers with his own and finally allowing the feelings of overwhelming affection to simply exist within himself without resistance. It was strange and a little alarming, the absence of those familiar walls. It didn’t quite feel real, didn’t quite feel safe. He grounded himself in the warmth of Daichi’s hand and the softness of Daichi’s eyes—the real, unimagined provability of them, the things he had tried to summon to mind a million times but never quite allowed himself to consider. 

“Hey,” Daichi’s voice was fond and husky as it broke the surface of Suga’s thoughts. “Can I kiss you?”

Suga smiled breathlessly, his stomach full of butterflies and his heart full to bursting.

“Absolutely not,” he replied. The look of blank confusion on Daichi’s face was, admittedly, transcendent.

“What? Why not?”

“Because,” Suga explained, laughing as he squeezed Daichi’s hand fondly and pulled away. “There are two dozen teenagers watching and I am responsible for half of them. And I refuse to let Nishinoya put our first kiss on instagram. But I do wish you could see your face right now.”

“That’s—that’s just mean!” Daichi protested. His cheeks were bright pink and he ran his fingers through his hair, flustered and distressed. “We can go outside, or—I thought—Suga, I’ve been waiting  _ weeks  _ for this—!”

Suga laughed harder, feeling lightheaded and mischievous as he smiled innocently at Daichi, picked his clipboard up off the ground and tucked it under his arm, then plucked the bouquet from Daichi’s hand and buried his nose in it. The chrysanthemums had a sort of earthy, rainy, smell to them that he thought he would love for the rest of his life. He regarded them fondly for a moment, tidying the blossoms, then turned back to the court with only a glance back over his shoulder.

“Trust me,” he declared matter-of-factly. “You can wait a little longer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU FOR READING I AM SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG
> 
> No we are not done and no i am not sorry for bait and switching you into an even longer slow burn satisfaction than you thought you were signing up for. But hey! It’s something!
> 
> If, like me, you are experiencing enormous guilt over giving Tsukishima multiple boyfriends who are not Yamaguchi, you can read this little fic I wrote to soothe my own conscience and apologize to Captain Freckles: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26361073/chapters/64204237 
> 
> anyway! that’s all i got today! thanks for the comments and kudos! i love serotonin!


	18. Borrowed Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much for your endless patience!!

It was almost exactly like this, the last time they were all together. Asahi seated on his right side, Daichi on his left. Nishinoya talking Asahi’s ear off, Daichi making congenial conversation with Shimizu across the table, Yachi next to her hovering at the edge of a stilted silence that hung around Yamaguchi and Tsukishima with something halfway between familiarity and discomfort. Somewhere further down the table, Tanaka was raising his voice while Ennoshita chuckled quietly. It felt like at any moment, Hinata and Kageyama might come barging through the restaurant doors, red-faced and shouting about who had beat whom in their race to lap the building six times before dinner was served, maybe with Coach and Sensei following behind, shepherding them with grudging amusement and exasperated resignation—still, that wasn’t really the part that was anchoring him to the past with ringing familiarity. It was the overwhelming sense of sameness that came from knowing this, too, would pass.

_ After all—graduation was only a few short weeks away. Suga kept pushing the thought aside and it kept returning with renewed persistence each time, a spike drill of reality slammed off a gymnasium wall again and again and again. He wanted nothing more than to live in this moment, but even that desire could only seem to articulate itself in the context of knowing that failure to do so would be a missed opportunity that wouldn’t come back around. _

_ He sighed to himself and let his thoughts drift as he looked around the table fondly. Daichi cast him a sidelong glance and grinned, waving his fingers in front of Suga’s face as if to wake him up from a spell. _

_ “Earth to Sugawara-san,” he intoned seriously. “Can you still hear us out here?” _

_ “Hmmmm?” Suga offered him a pleasant smile full of manufactured serenity. “Sorry, come again? My hearing must be going in my advanced age.” _

_ “That’s not age, Suga,” Asahi chuckled gently. “It’s noise pollution.” He nodded meaningfully toward the other end of the table, where Noya and Tanaka were involved in some sort of dare with Hinata that was inexplicably calamitous. _

_ “A miracle any of us still have our senses about us,” Daichi mused.  _

_ “Speak for yourself,” Suga laughed. “If I had any sense left, I’d have quit volleyball last spring when Kageyama walked into the club room.” _

_ The other two fell quiet as they shared a look. _

_ “You don’t mean that.” Asahi’s voice was gentle, but it struck Suga with a sharp pang of guilt. Daichi said nothing. _

_ “Obviously,” Suga rolled his eyes and lied with an easy smile. “Lighten up, Asahi-san.” _

_ Asahi did not lighten up, he in fact looked ready to stage a crisis intervention if the next words out of Suga’s mouth weren’t convincingly happy. It didn’t change the bitter taste of his inward monologue, but it did ignite that deep and intense affection always burning in the pit of Suga’s stomach. He felt a little bit like he would die for Asahi, if the occasion ever arose, and wondered what it was like to be somebody who loved people a normal amount. Maybe it was just his lot in life to care too much and be capable of too little—his ability never quite matching his devotion. He swallowed the thought and punched the ace lightly on the shoulder with a teasing grin. _

_ “Don’t give me that look! I’m the one who told Daichi he had to stick around when he tried to bail on us, remember? And I’m the one who tried to talk you back into rejoining the team at all when you  _ did  _ bail on us!” _

_ “Okay, Suga, we get it.” Daichi smiled resignedly, but there was a softness to it. “We owe you, you’re the reason we’re here, we wouldn’t be anything without you—what am I missing?” _

_ “Mm, say that I’m your favorite setter and you love me and you’re both going to be my friends forever and ever and never leave. Also you’re going to give me your crispy tofu.” _

_ The moment crackled into bantery laughter and chopstick warfare, all of the melancholy temporarily dissolved beneath the surface. Right now, they were here. Right now, they were laughing. Right now, he had everything he wanted. Wasn’t that enough? _

_ Wasn’t it?  _ Suga mused to himself as he swished tea around in a little ceramic cup with absentminded detachment. It felt selfish to be sitting here, surrounded on all sides by more than he had any idea how to ask for, and to still be thinking only of the fact that it couldn’t last. Still—better this than to let himself get too caught up in the moment, he supposed. Otherwise, what was he going to do with himself when he woke up tomorrow? When he couldn’t just turn around and immediately find Asahi at his side? When Daichi was half a country away and no longer surrounded by the kind of exhilaration that made a person want to kiss somebody without thinking? When all of the people who had given up their time and reordered their lives to help make an impossible day happen didn’t have a reason anymore to be in the same room at all?

He knew he was overthinking it. But it felt like overthinking was the only thing he’d had to offer the situation, really. And now even that was about at its limits. His great big game plan had only accounted for so much—he hadn’t gotten the chance yet to figure out the next play, and his sleep-deprived brain was well beyond its capacity for creativity. He just sat back and let the sound of the room wash over him, the colors of individual voices threading in and out, in and out. 

“Asahi-san, are you going to be at the trade show on the 30th of next month? One of our models told me that your label usually—“ That was Yachi, of course.

“—kids these days are crazy! I have three-year clients in local league that could never jump like that Nekoma blocker today—“ And there was Tanaka.

“—err, maybe, I don’t know who they’ll send. I usually try to avoid events with crowds—“ Asahi.

“—something in the water, I guess—hey, wait, has Noya-kun been wearing my tie all day?” Ennoshita.

“—tell if it’s a team dinner or a couples mixer, haha. Good thing you’re in a relationship, Tsukki, or you might be leaving here with a new boyfriend!” Yamaguchi.

“It’s a polyamorous relationship.” And that was Tsukishima, followed by a sort of awkward choking sound which Suga could only assume was Yamaguchi again. He quickly finished his tea, cold by now, to avoid anything else that might be construed as a reaction. Daichi glanced in his direction, offering a warm smile, before something more thoughtful registered on his face and he cocked his head a bit. Suga felt his face flush.

“Can I help you?” he managed, through a cold and oversteeped mouthful.

Daichi chuckled.

“No, just observing.”

“Since when?” 

At his other shoulder, Asahi failed to stifle a laugh. Time froze there, for a second, where the three of them sat together—the moment was warm and familiar and it hurt. Suga stood up abruptly from the table, gingerly placing the offending teacup down as he made to leave.

“Hey, you okay?”

“Peachy. But I’ve been in close quarters with this crowd since before the sun was up and if I don’t get to hear silence for a minute, I think I’m gonna put a chopstick through my eardrum. Asahi, you’re in charge.”

He excused himself from the table without further explanation and slipped out of the dining room up to the front of the restaurant. He really  _ did  _ need just a moment outside to himself, but he might as well go ahead and pay the tab while he was here—the finality it brought to the afternoon felt like lead in Suga’s stomach, but he’d rather deal with it here than at the table. Sooner or later he had to get these kids on the road. Which meant even sooner than that, he had to cross a handful of painful and inevitable goodbyes, and he couldn’t begin to wrap his head around that while his heart was hammering in his throat and his thoughts kept pulling him back more years than he wanted to count.

“Hi,” he smiled at the staffer at the front counter. “I wanted to go ahead and pay the bill for the large party in there—just one check.” He steeled himself for the number to come, knowing it would leave a sizeable dent in his modest savings, but dinner was the least he could do for everyone. He’d figure out the finer points later. He didn’t have to start paying rent until his next paycheck, and the security deposit couldn’t be  _ that  _ bad...and Tanaka’s house was close to the school. Walking was cheap.

“Sir, that group has already been paid for.” The host, interrupting Suga’s train of thought, looked mildly confused, but it paled in comparison to how Suga knew his own expression must have looked.

“What? Paid for? By whom?”

“By us.” Daichi, appearing behind him, clapped a hand on his shoulder as Asahi sheepishly half-waved. “Obviously.”

“You—you don’t have to—“

“We literally already did, Suga,” Asahi shrugged. “Like, right after we got here.”

“I could have paid for everyone—“ Suga knew he should feel grateful, should feel touched, but mostly he just felt stubborn. Daichi was unbothered.

“You are in the middle of  _ moving _ ,” he sighed, handing Suga the jacket he’d left at the table and guiding him toward the door as Asahi profusely thanked the host. “I’m sure you’ve got plenty of expenses already. And you’re a public school teacher. It’s one thing to treat the team, but we weren’t going to let you pay for all of us, too.”

“Besides, it’s the least we could do,” Asahi added as he followed the two of them outside. 

“I thought I left  _ you  _ in charge of the table,” Suga pouted accusingly.

“I left Nishinoya in charge.”

“I’m going back inside—“

“No,” Daichi stated firmly, catching Suga by the crook of his arm. “You’re going to let  _ your assistant coach _ do his job, and you’re going to let your two best friends spend a moment with you before you leave.”

Suga tried his best to keep being difficult, but he was only partially successful.

“What makes you think you’re my best friends?” he managed. 

“I’m an optimist.”

There was a retort ready on his tongue, some stubborn, slippery thing about  _ that’s not how I remember it  _ or  _ i thought that was my line  _ or something equally juvenile and half-hearted, but standing there in the brisk shade of the late afternoon with the two people he wanted most to see, Sugawara couldn’t seem to remember wanting to say it—instead, he just relented into a grin, shaking his head and burying his hands in his pockets as he breathed in the first peaceful moment he’d had all day. The three of them just stood there like that, for a long minute, taking in each other’s presence in warm, affectionate silence.

Suga sighed heavily, pulling back and tilting his gaze up toward the overcast afternoon sky. The past three weeks felt like a surreal haze, and this moment felt like a lucid dream—something beautiful but not quite actual. Something he had to keep in place with conscious effort and restraint, knowing he was just buying time. This was probably the moment, he thought, where he was supposed to have some sort of breakthrough. Some self-discovery or revelation. He was a little tired of that. Over and over he had repeatedly returned to that place in himself where he felt like he had no more to give, and found some indomitable little spark to persevere with—but how many more times was he supposed to do this? To push himself to the brink of exhaustion, desperately wring an epiphany out of the tears that threatened to overtake him, and then stand back up and seek out some new way to go through it all over again? Moving home, taking the job, coaching a team, breaking down, standing up, falling out, pushing back, rallying again and again and again... Now, for this one warm little moment, everything was perfect, everything he had driven himself for was laid out in front of him—and he couldn’t keep it. It was all too much. What was the next step, after this? Where did he go from here? 

“I’m not ready to say goodbye.” 

It wasn’t what he had meant to say—he hadn’t really meant to say anything—but it fell out into the space between them before he could stop it. Daichi and Asahi exchanged another of those small, wordless glances, a little nod of unspoken agreement.

“Then...don’t,” Asahi suggested. “I mean, not—not for real. I don’t know. I was probably going to go grab an overnight bag and then come out to Miyagi anyway. I feel like Nishinoya and I probably have some things to talk about somewhere other than a high school parking lot.”

“I...kind of hoped maybe we did too?” Daichi gave a hesitant little half-smile that squeezed Suga’s heart so suddenly his chest ached. “If you don’t mind me taking up a little more of your weekend.”

“You mean—All the way out to Miyagi and back? Just for the night?” Suga stammered as his face flushed with sudden heat. “Don’t you—I mean, don’t you have work, or—that’s too much to ask, I couldn’t—“

“You came all the way out to Tokyo,” Asahi offered helpfully. 

“Y—for the  _ volleyball team,  _ that’s different, it’s—“

“No, it’s not.” Daichi’s voice was soft but firm, insistent. “You’re just being unfair to yourself. Suga, you’ve spent weeks—years, probably—making sacrifices to give other people what they need. Is it really that hard to believe someone might want to return the favor? Besides, it’s not exactly selfless. I want to see you.”

Daichi smiled with a fondness that made Sugawara reflexively want to avert his eyes. The haphazard confession from the gymnasium still hadn’t quite settled into something that felt real—maybe he didn’t trust it to. If it was some daydream thing, some happy little fantasy or a wishful misunderstanding, then he was in familiar territory. It didn’t seem right to believe it was anything else. In the hour or so since, while there were students to mind and tasks to be done and polite conversations to entertain, he’d been able to lean on old habits, but now? Here? This was uncharted territory. 

No more talking himself out of his own feelings. No more putting up walls around the memory of a smile, no more crying over the things he couldn’t stop himself from wanting. He wasn’t inventing a warmth that wasn’t there, he didn’t have to tell himself that he was. And that was...terrifying. Suga knew a lot about being in love. He didn’t know very much at all about receiving it. It had always sort of seemed maybe he wasn’t supposed to.

“I...I want to see you too.”

“Okay. Then that’s all that matters.”

Suga laughed a little, shaking his head.

“You always make everything sound so... _ simple. _ ”

“It usually is.”

“Err, not to be that guy,” Asahi interjected awkwardly, “but it is going to be slightly un-simple if we want to get back to our apartments and still make the train at a reasonable hour. We should probably get going.”

“Fair enough. Give everyone our regards?”

“Give them yourselves,” Suga replied with a wicked little grin. “When we see you tonight.”

-*-*

Suga felt a warmth that radiated all the way out to his fingertips as he stepped back into the restaurant to begin rounding up the students. Daichi and Asahi had departed without delay to make their respective stops before beginning the long trip out to Karasuno Ward, which admittedly made him a bit more eager than before to subject himself to the din of the bus and the many kilometers that stood between all of them and, if maybe not the good night’s sleep he had anticipated, then at least a few hours well worth staying up for.

He was about to stop at Nishinoya’s seat, to let him know they were about to start filing out, but something about the conversation at the students’ table suddenly caught his attention and held it fast.

“Say goodbye to Tokyo, my dudes,” Kaneko dryly remarked, raising his water glass. “It was nice while it lasted.”

“Knock it off,” Imasa chided him. “We’ll be back for Nationals.”

“Oh yeah, Nationals are here in Tokyo aren’t they?” That sounded like Sakurai.

“Nationals might  _ be  _ in Tokyo,” Kaneko sighed. “But we won’t be.”

“That’s kinda mean,” Benjiro frowned so loudly you could hear it in his voice. “I thought we did pretty well today for our first game.”

“Yeah, come on, ‘Neko, stop being a jerk. We have weeks left to keep working. It’s not gonna be easy, but I don’t think it’s fair to give up just yet.”

“I’m not  _ talking  _ about the  _ team,  _ Asa. Do you know how  _ expensive  _ competition seasons are? You’ve seen our account. We’ve got less than nothing to work with. Y’know, it’s a nice dream, but like, get real.”

“Well...then we’ll fundraise,” Imasa, ever the optimist, countered. “And-and maybe we can borrow the bus again, and—“

“And  _ what? _ Do a bake sale? Fundraising takes  _ time _ , man, and it takes  _ hard work, _ and we need both of those things for practice to even have half a chance. Face it—we just weren’t ready this year. The second years will get their chance, probably, but ours is gone.”

Silence fell hard and heavy on the table as the vice captain shrugged and shoved his hands in his pockets with understated finality. Suga felt that same aching pang of familiarity in his chest that had haunted him so many times in the past few weeks. This time, words deserted him. He placed a hand on Noya’s shoulder and gestured toward the buses with a meaningful nod, preoccupied as he watched the other adults help to gather coats and bags and phones and shepherd the team out toward the parking lot. He dipped his head gratefully to the restaurant staff and dutifully double checked his roster as they filed aboard and began the long drive home, but despite everything that awaited him there, his thoughts never left Tokyo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember restaurants and like. going to them. with friends. just packing a bag and going somewhere. remember that? wild

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I can’t promise a regular update schedule on this but it’s been pretty consistently, at least once a week, and i don’t foresee that changing. Anyway, I’m a sucker for stories about coming back home and finding yourself and rekindling old friendships. Especially if they have Gratuitous Gay Romance along the way.
> 
> Spoilers: this one does.
> 
> [EDIT: Hi, so obviously this hasn’t been updating regularly. I have been working on chapter 18 for six thousand years and unfortunately it’s just...really hard to write warm, lovey scenes where a bunch of friends are all in the same place right now. I promise it will be up soon though—this fic hasn’t been abandoned and there’s so much roadmap left that I truly do want to see it through. Thanks for your patience!]


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